


If You Cross the Street...

by AsarStar



Series: Crossing the Street [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Friendship, The feels, not really retirement, summer away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-09
Updated: 2014-10-09
Packaged: 2018-02-03 23:29:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 27,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1759651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsarStar/pseuds/AsarStar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Saving a billionaire from a vampire attack wasn't really what Buffy wanted to be doing when she ran away, but at least she doesn't have to wear that gross uniform anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing, I'm just playing with the parts for my entertainment. (Buffy owned by Joss Whedon and that team, Iron Man universe owned by Marvel, but also the movie was really John Favreau's baby, I just like to play with the world he created.)
> 
> A/N: This story was actually completed sometime in 2012, as the prequel to what is supposed to be two split universe options, but I was never happy with this story, so it really stunted continuing on with the others and posting this one. I finally got some inspiration and started rewriting this last week, and now, due to smolder's (on TTH) wonderful writing philosophy, I'm gonna start posting and just see how I go. I'll update the tags as I go.

He watched her dancing from his spot in the VIP section, and saw clearly he wasn't the only one. An attractive brunette pressed against her, and the two women continue to dance. He wanted to join them, but, upon making eye contact with her, he knew she was just playing bait. He hated this, waiting, watching. Soon they were slipping through the crowd and heading towards a side door. He watched, three others moved from the crowd, discretely following, if he hadn't been watching, he'd have missed it. Silently, he brought up the rear. 

From the doorway to the alley, he found her surrounded by the three new comers, the first already gone. Their faces had shifted and ridges dominated what had formerly look like the human visage. She fought the three remaining with skill and speed. The last one lunged towards him, and he wondered vaguely if it meant to use him as leverage, but the thought was short lived as she threw her wooden stake and it exploded into a pile of dust.

"You shouldn't follow me," she shook her head, walking over to come back inside.

"I just wanted to make sure you didn't get locked out," he smiled cheekily. 

A roll of her eyes, and his grin widened.

"Any more or is it safe to have fun now, Annie?" he asked as they walked back to their table.

"Who said I wasn't having fun?" She smirked, an expression only weeks before he wouldn't have expected to see on her face. Then, leaning close to his ear she whispered, "Don't worry, Tony, I'm still the most dangerous one here."

Taking off her jacket, she threw it onto the chair, downed one of the glasses of champagne on the table and headed back towards the floor. He stood distracted momentarily, watching as blond hair flowed over her shoulders and down her back, his eyes lingering further as her hips moved gracefully in very tight leather. Yes, very distracted, before he took off after, happy to join the girl who'd easily attracted the attention of everyone on the floor. 

 

Rupert Giles rolled his eyes at the latest phone call he'd taken. Joyce Summers hovered nearby, waiting to hear the latest news on her daughter.

"They said the slayer was in _Ibiza_ cleaning up raves all weekend," he told her, hanging up the phone. 

"Ibiza, how's that possible? She doesn't even have a passport," Joyce asked shaking her head.

"It might be the new slayer, the council hasn't given any information on her. You're right, it's unlikely to be Buffy," he agreed, sitting down. "The reports are getting more and more spread out. There's no doubt, someone with the ability to travel almost anywhere has taken up slaying recently."


	2. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had some really great feedback on the other site where I post and it really helped kick this story into gear. What started as 5 chapters and that tiny prologue completed 2 years ago is now more than doubled in length and content. I might almost have a fully fledged story. :-)
> 
> Timeline: slightly, but only by a couple years, AU for Iron Man, so we're saying he's just a tad bit younger. The movies still take place when they take place (him being slightly younger doesn't affect them). I'm taking my cues Marvel, which never sets a solid birth year without changing it in their comics (there's a whole series of comics that split to a different universe where Coulson didn't die, age and life status - alive/dead - aren't really sacrosanct things in comic book worlds). Age will be introduced contextually in the next chapter.
> 
> Finally, I'm giving this to you now, but with the understanding that I only wrote this particular chapter on Monday, and I feel very strange releasing something so quickly without weeks/months/years of editing. 
> 
> Love feedback, thank you muchly!

To say that Helen's kitchen was a less than ideal working environment was putting things mildly. During the day, it was a never ending stream of almost homeless people who'd scraped together just enough to eat, certainly not enough to tip, and teenagers who picked on those same homeless people. By evening, it was rude, mean guys, who didn't have someone to cook for them at home and made it very clear they thought that was a woman's place, despite the fact that the line cook, Rudy, was big and bulky enough to take on any of them if they made an issue of it. These same guys tended to think a slap on her ass and an offer to take her home was considered a good tip.

The only good crowd was the 4am crowd. Oddly enough, the area had a handful of clubs that were considered worth going to by the people who could afford to buy a whole bottle. The same crowd often got hungry at random hours and thought slumming it in diners was considered fun, making it the most ideal work shift, as they often tipped at least a recognizable percentage. The 4am shift was actually the 2am, that way you were in already for the ones who wanted a coffee before going off to find a late night party, and then could stay through with the ones who thought seeing sunrise in a grungy diner was an adventure.

The part she actually hated about the 2am shift was passing all the club goers to get to work, dressed in her dingy polyester uniform. It never failed to wreck her already beaten sense of self-esteem.

Pressing through the gauntlet once more, hearing comments on her choice of attire (choice, ha), her choice of 'career' (once more, choice, ha), she got that familiar creeping feeling up her spine, through her nerve endings. The harder, stronger part of her, the part of her that didn't really feel like her anymore, but a parasite that decided to take up residence in her body, made its opinion on the nearby threat known. No matter how she really felt about the situation, she was taking off running through the crowd, down into the dark alley. Slamming her foot into a crate emblazoned with champagne logos, she grabbed a piece of the flimsy wood and kept running behind the building. 

God, the red dress was one she'd wanted all summer. It'd been the dress she imagined getting herself when she managed to get herself on her feet. It was an emblem, a hope for a better future than her current existence, and there it was on a fucking vampire, with that ugly ridged face. She was moving, pulling the vampire off its intended victim before she could even really think things through. Her fist slammed into its face and all she could think was about how she'd always thought that the ridged face of a vampire looked uglier than anything she could have imagined before becoming the slayer. Beasts disguised as humans, except when they wore that ridged face.

It was the face of Angel, retracting from Angelus, that sat heavily in her mind as she slammed the piece of wood home into the woman's chest. No longer human, no longer vampire, just dust.

"Holy shit, you just did that, that was amazing." The intended victim was leaned against the wall, but he was grinning, excited, and she couldn't help but wonder just how much blood he'd lost, as it had dripped down his neck onto the rocker t-shirt and black blazer he wore.

She checked his wound, while he insisted she tell him how that happened.

"PCP," she suggested with a shrug.

"Not likely," he shook his head, as she tore some of his t-shirt and pressed it to his neck, moving his hand to hold it in place. The vampire hadn't nicked the artery, the blood flow was already slowing drastically, but he was obviously lightheaded enough to have issues standing.

"You sure? You and a hot date didn't think it'd be fun to try something new tonight?" she suggested again, keeping her tone innocent and sweet, the blond act was useful, even if her highlights were growing out. "She took off running like something crazy."

"Nice try, really, but that's definitely not what happened," he shook his head, no longer grinning.

"You sure? You should really go to the hospital and get that checked out, it's pretty messy," she shook her head, catching him as he attempted to stand up. 

"Nah, I'm fine," he shook his head and managed to stand upright on his own. "Just gonna head home, get cleaned up."

"Is there anyone you can call for a lift?" she asked, glancing at her watch, feeling the lateness of it, and seeing the time. 2:30. The swear came out below her breath, "shit", without any hesitation. She was late for work, late for a job she was certain she didn't have any more, maybe if she ran, she could salvage it. 

"Somewhere more important to be?" came the rather snarky response.

"Well yeah," she gestured to her dusty uniform.

"Diner convention?" If she left him there, he'd probably fall and die and no one would find him till morning, she had to convince herself in order to not do just that. She _was_ the last person seen back there.

"Pretty sure I just lost my job saving your butt, you should be more grateful," she snapped back. 

"Hi, I'm Tony Stark, maybe you've heard of me," he grinned, holding his hand out in greeting.

"And that's gonna help me how?" She glanced down towards the corner that led to the end of the alley, no one was coming, no one had heard the commotion of their fight over the commotion of the front door or the club itself, she was stuck there with a spoiled billionaire who didn't quite get the point that it was moving on time. "I've still gotta pay rent and eat."

"Well that's not the usual response," he laughed, and it was pretty annoying. "What's your name anyways, kid?"

"Anne," she shrugged, managing not to hesitate, the name still didn't quite roll of her tongue, and she often wondered just how long it would take to get used to it.  
"Well, Annie, this is your lucky night. You saved my life, and I can definitely find something better for you than snarly Helen's Kitchen," he threw his arm over her shoulder, and she realized immediately he was leaning his weight into her, which she took on easily. "Now if you could just help me home, that would be great."

The valet ticket he gave her brought around a ridiculous car, she wasn't even sure she could drive the damn thing without crashing it. Behind the wheel, of a car she wasn't even sure the brand of, she found the feather light response was startling at first, but it turned out to be a boon for her intensely reactive style of driving. Mom cars beware, but luxury sports cars, wow, they'd be on her wish list forever. Thankfully, even though he was close to passing out, Tony managed to direct them all the way back to his Malibu home and through the security system.

When he started pouring himself a glass of scotch (she could tell, cause it smelled like what her dad drank), she dragged the glass out of his hand and managed to get directions to the first aid kid (his bedroom). Around his incessant flirting and questions about what that thing attacking him had been, she'd gotten him cleaned up and in bed. 

Finding a plaid button up in his closet that looked mostly unused, she pulled it on over her undergarments and the bike shorts she wore to work under the ancient uniform. It took half an hour of listening to his slightly labored breathing to fall into a restless sleep on the couch to the side of the room. A couple of checks later, his neck had fully stopped bleeding by 4:30, and she finally let herself actually catch some sleep, only to be woken as she heard him get up at 5:30, though she kept her eyes closed and didn't move, she waited as he threw a blanket over her before leaving the room.


	3. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Buffy's referred to just as Anne in this chapter because it's 3rd person limited from Pepper's point of view. This will happen from time to time. I'm not a big fan of 3rd person omniscient, but I also don't have the attention span to write the entire story from one particular person's direction. Generally, I'll try to be good and contextually call her Buffy, but I've gotten at least 2/3rds of the way through the story writing her as Anne and going back and adjusting. So, apologies if it sounds wonky later on. (It feels wonky to have a dual named character, lol, but to be fair, it must be pretty wonky to be thinking of yourself by one name and having everyone call you another.)
> 
> Thanks for the kudos, reviews and smiles make the writing easier. :-)

May 31st, 1998

"You've got a girl upstairs, don't you?" Pepper asked picking up one of Tony's shoes as she walked through to the kitchen. 

"Oh, yes, don't kick her out," he answered quickly, sounding a bit manic, as he scribbled in his notepad. 

"Really?" she asked, surprised. In the two years she had worked for Tony Stark, he had never once asked her to do anything but kick out the many women he brought home come morning. "What's her name? You do know her name don't you?"

"Annie," he responded sounding sure, then second guessing added, "At least I'm pretty sure that's what she said. Anyways, doesn't matter she saved my life last night, gave me an idea for a new flame thrower."

"Really? How so?"

"Something more compact and fuel efficient than those leaf-blowers we're producing now."

"No, how did she save you?" Pepper shook her head in irritation. Sometimes his mind only ran on one track, well, two given the girl involvement.

"Vampire, at least I'd assume vampire. She wouldn't tell me. It had fangs, bit my neck, ugly ridge face, and it turned to dust when she shoved some wood in its heart." He didn't look up, didn't look at her, didn't honestly even seem fazed about the whole thing, her only evidence, besides the fact that she knew about things he probably didn't, was the bandage expertly applied to the base of his neck, definitely not something he could do himself.

"Sounds like vampire. I'll go check on her." She couldn't help but wonder for a moment if he'd question her lack of interest or surprise about the attack, but he continued on with his plans, and she held back a small sigh of relief.

"Can we keep her?" he asked this as if he were asking to keep a pet, but Pepper knew, he was interested in something, he'd been inspired for the first time in several months to do more than work on his luxury cars. He was loath to let inspiration walk right out the door. Then, as if a spark hit, he continued, "Oooo, she can fill in for you."

"I haven't decided to go," she used her sternest tone, having never actually agreed to his plan that she should have a summer vacation to travel, having never agreed because of the fact that he found out she wanted to go in the first place by hacking her private email.

"Of course you will, plane tickets already purchased. She can take your place, so you wont be worried about me. If she can save my life, she can handle it." He'd decided, it was clear, and was more than ready to move on to other projects. "Also, I think she lost her job helping me, so I said I'd find her a new one."

She let out a scoffing laugh and shook her head, even though he wasn't looking.

"I'll talk to her, we'll see." She was firm, their agreement had at least been that she'd get final say over who replaced her.

"You'll like her." He was so very sure of himself and sometimes she hated that he was right so often.

She shook her head and climbed the stairs, determined to see if it was a one off and the girl had been lucky or if the girl was worth paying attention to. There was no question in her mind that he'd brought home a girl, despite having spent the weekend on his 25th birthday, Tony Stark continuously failed to bring home anyone of any maturity. 

Looking into his bedroom she saw that the room was empty, the bed still mussed, but ever so slightly tidied, far more than he did himself. A blanket that was usually on the bed folded was folded neatly on the couch and an old worn diner uniform was carefully placed beside it. The door to the balcony was open, and looking out the window, she saw the back of the girl she supposed was "Annie" or something close to that, upside down, unmoving, hands planted firmly on a towel on the ground. Stepping outside she saw that the girl really was a girl, looking no more than a young 19 at the most.

"Annie?" she asked, testing out the name he'd given her.

"Anne," she was corrected immediately. Eyes opened, and then twenty or twenty-one seemed more possible, old soul eyes her grandmother had once called eyes like that, "Anne Gallagher."

"I'm Pepper Potts, Tony's assistant," she introduced herself in return.

"I should leave, sorry for hanging around, this view was so nice, I couldn't help meditating a bit," the girl replied, flipping herself easily, nimbly, to her feet. 

"Oh, please, you're alright. Tony's convinced you should stick around." Anne lifted an eyebrow at this, looking almost ready to roll her eyes and Pepper felt surprisingly comforted by the action.

"Please, I didn't sleep with him. I just made sure he didn't bleed out in the middle of the night," she scoffed, and Pepper fought down a grin.

"That's not quite why he wants you to stay, apparently you saved him from a vampire?" Pepper asked it, hoping the girl would fill in the details.

"Happens, you know, girl sees boy being attacked by vampire, girl stakes it, saves boy," she said simply. "You weren't going to accept gangs on pcp were you? Cause he wouldn't, I tried."

"No, definitely not, Tony may get raging drunk, but if he says someone disappeared in a pile of dust, I believe him."

"What are you?" Anne asked suddenly, looking at Pepper like she knew something, and she got it, maybe she wasn't sensing anything, but obviously Anne wasn't straight human either.

"Part Ano-movic on my mother's side, and you?" Pepper told her as if telling her there was toast waiting downstairs.

"I...I can't...I should go," Anne replied, getting edgy, glancing at the exit and the railing like she was hedging her bets and Pepper thought quickly of the new cliff side house Tony was almost finished building, glad that this house definitely wasn't it.

"Girl sees boy being attacked by vampires, girl runs the other direction, maybe calls the cops, that's how that story goes. Girl slays vampire, well, that's a whole different legend, one that says only one girl in the world does that," Pepper continued calmly, trying to calm her out of her edgy movements.

"Two, two girls," Anne corrected quickly, then caught herself, seeing her mistake.

"Really? I haven't heard that part of the story before." It was Pepper's turn to raise an eyebrow.

"I'll tell you, if you promise not to tell anyone."

"Alright, and in return, I'm going to ask if you'd like a job."

"A job, you mean he wasn't joking?" She couldn't help but feel bad at how surprised Anne looked at the thought.

"Yes, _my_ job. Given the uniform on the couch in there, I assume your story ends with you hiding. What better place than in plain sight? You'll travel the world, and everyone will just think you're my hand selected temporary replacement. It is just temporary, a couple months, but if you still need something after that, we can figure it out," Pepper explained.

"That would be, wow, but I...I don't have any identification or _anything_ ," she was looking at Pepper with a sort of awe, and the older blond felt for the younger woman, recognizing in her a country sized chink in what should've been a much stronger persona.

"I'll take care of that, so, come, we have a week to get you trained and we still need some time for you to tell me everything without Tony possibly hearing," Pepper smiled and turned to go back inside, knowing Anne would follow.

As they crossed through Tony's bedroom, Pepper picked up the pale green dress off the couch and Anne looked at her sheepishly.

"Lets find you something better than this to wear, I have some spare clothes in one of the guest rooms, you can use those for today. They might be a bit long, but they should fit otherwise," Pepper sighed, going through her head and building up a list of what would need to be done for Anne to even begin to step into her place. "There should be some time this afternoon, we'll take you to get a work appropriate wardrobe. I take it from this uniform you don't have any business clothes, correct?"

"Um, yeah, I've been just getting by with what I had in my bag when I got here," she was carful to edge around the truth. "Why are you trusting me so much? We just met."

"Knowing what you are is pretty helpful. With the things I know about the Watcher's Council, I'm inclined to help keep you out of their reach. However, Tony will be a pain in my ass if I don't at least give you a try. So we have a week to see if I'm actually leaving for the summer," Pepper explained, guiding her down the hall and into a guest room, before going straight to the closet and pulling out appropriate clothing. Handing her a pile, she said, "Here try this outfit."

"So what would I be doing? I've never done anything like this before," her voice came from the other side of the bathroom door as she changed.

"We've already figured out plans to cover most of my responsibilities, so it's nothing too hard. You'd be in charge of scheduling, making sure he's actually up and out the door, goes to meetings that kind of thing," she told her, choosing her words carefully.

"Babysitting duty?" came the prompt question. "I'm not a bodyguard."

"Babysitting duty describes it perfectly," Pepper grinned, as Anne stepped out. "Here, I have some safety pins somewhere."

"You sure keep a lot of stuff here," the younger girl commented, as she pulled a box of safety pins out of the dresser drawer.

"You never know when you'll need a change of outfits. I also keep clothes at the office," Pepper told her, going to work pinning up the pants and cuffs to make the outfit look more wearable.


	4. Chapter 3

"Wow," Tony stated, eyes widening as both women entered the kitchen, "you look..."

"Be nice," Pepper cut him off, giving him a stern look.

"What? I was being nice, you didn't let me finish," he immediately responded rapid fire. Quelled by the look Pepper continued to give him, he turned to Buffy and restarted, "I'm sorry, Annie, what I meant to say was that you look very professional, it's a very lovely change, not that the uniform didn't look cute on you, but..." The look on Pepper's face caused him to trail off almost immediately after he caught sight. "Shutting up now."

"Um, thanks, I guess," Buffy nodded, giving him a pressed lip smile, still compressing the concept that not only did she have a fake name, now she had a fake nickname. After the rundown Pepper had given her while getting dressed, she wasn't quite sure she was really up for the job of being Tony Stark's personal assistant, scratch that, handler.

"Why aren't you dressed yet? You have to be in the office you know," Pepper asked, pouring cups of coffee for both Anne and herself. 

"I was making coffee, and working on this design that I told you about."

"The coffee pot's on a timer."

"I needed something finished to give the engineers when we get to the office."

"You're not going to build it yourself?"

"Well certainly not in the workroom here, do you know how flammable the fuel in this is?"

"Go get dressed, your first meeting is at 11, and today's a perfect day to start showing Anne the ropes."

"It's a meeting with Obie, he'll understand."

"You're meeting with the board this afternoon, and then a meeting with legal and PR after that. Go. Get. Ready."

"Fine," Tony replied exasperated, throwing his hands in the air. "She's such a task master, you won't be like that will you?"

"I'm not sure I can replicate her tone of voice, but I'll do my best to make Pepper proud," she smiled, a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

"Not you too! But you were so much fun, we killed vampires together," he cried out, affecting disappointment in his tone.

"I slayed, you watched," she corrected dryly, unimpressed.

"Fine, fine," he replied, acting more upset than he truly was.

"You didn't tell me he's such a child," Buffy said, lifting her eyebrow at Pepper.

"I was a bit afraid you'd run for the hills screaming," came Pepper's dry response.

"I should never have introduced you," he shook his head, and headed out of the kitchen.

 

"Who's she?" Obie asked, immediately upon walking into the office.

"Oh, that's Annie, Pepper's replacement while she's on vacation," Tony told him, shuffling through several papers, as Pepper went over things with Anne on the couch.

"Aren't you a bit young, _Annie_ ," Obie directed towards Buffy, making it more statement than question.

"That would be up to my boss to decide, and the name is Anne," she replied immediately, only worrying about her tone after she'd finished speaking, but refused to show anything on her face.

"I believe Anne is perfectly capable of handling this position, and you remember the agreement was that I get the final say," Pepper spoke carefully, wanting to appease Obie, but didn't appear to be concerned with Buffy's response.

"Alright, it is just for a couple months, but if she's not up to snuff, you'll be able to make sure Tony here isn't left hanging right?" He asked, continuing to attempt to assert his authority in a situation that was no longer his.

"Of course," Pepper agreed.

"Great. Tony, I heard rumblings that you dropped off something with research and development this morning."

"Yeah, I've had this new burst of inspiration for a line of fire based products," Tony grinned, glancing over towards Buffy for a moment, who appeared to engrossed in the instructions Pepper was walking her through, but kept an ear out for the rest of the room.

"Really? Anything we can mention to the board? Things have been a little slow lately."

"I have the feeling we'll be on a solid upturn for the foreseeable future," Tony nodded.

 

"So what are you up to for lunch?" Tony asked, looping his arms over the two women's shoulders as they left the office.

"While you're meeting with Rhodes, I'm going with Anne to figure out what she needs to get. We can do a shopping trip after the board meeting," Pepper explained, shrugging off his arm, with Buffy quickly following suit.

"I could come with you," he suggested with a grin. "It'd be fun, we never hang out."

"You have the lunch meeting with Rhodes," Buffy repeated Pepper's words, lifting only an eyebrow at him.

"He would understand completely."

"No he wouldn't, you blew him off last time," Pepper corrected.

"Ok, fine, can I at least give you a ride?" 

"Fine."

 

"Wait! You live here?" Tony asked, climbing out of the car before Buffy or Pepper could. "You can't stay here."

"It's fine, I can take care of myself," Buffy glared, as Pepper climbed out of the car, coming to stand beside him and looking at the building with disbelief as well.

"You'll be too far away from the house," Pepper shook her head and offering the most rational argument. "There's got to be a place available closer, we can grab something for you."

"You can stay at the house, there are rooms on the opposite end, it'll feel just like your own place," Tony brushed off Pepper's suggestion. "Come on, lets get your stuff and get you out of here."

"Don't I get a say in this?" she asked, irritated that they would make this decision for them.

"No!" Pepper and Tony responded together, ignoring the pout that formed on Buffy's face.

"Happy, watch the car and tell Rhodes we're heading back to the house shortly, he can meet us there for lunch," Tony ordered, taking the keys right out of Buffy's hands and leading the way.

Between Pepper and Tony, it didn't even take five minutes to gather all of her things and put them into her duffle back. Less time than it had taken her to grab her things from her room _and_ the bag was tidy, she couldn't help but be impressed by how efficient the two were when working together, but she made sure not to let them see anything but a pout on her face and refused to answer Tony's questions about the different bladed weapons she'd brought with her to LA.

 

"What's going on?" Rhodes asked, giving Tony a stern look as Tony walked in the door carrying Buffy's bag, while she and Pepper followed close behind. 

"Rhodes, meet Annie. Annie, this is Rhodes, he the military liason for Stark Industries," Tony introduced, dropping the bag by the foot of the stairs.

"Anne Gallagher, nice to meet you," Buffy smiled, holding out her hand.

"Anne?" he questioned, verifying that Tony _wasn't_ calling her by the correct name, as he reached to shake her hand.

"Ann _ie_ ," Tony corrected.

"Anne," she replied stubbornly, giving him a fierce look.

" _Annie_ "

"Anne"

"Pepper, show her where she'll be staying, you know what rooms I was talking about."

"Of course," she nodded, hiding her amusement over the exchange.

"We can drag that up later, it's..." Tony trailed off, as Buffy picked up her bag. His eyes widened when she pulled it over her shoulder as if it weighed nothing, which, given the nag in his shoulder that he was feeling from carrying it in, he knew wasn't the case.

"What's up?" Rhodes asked, nodding his heads towards the stairs once the women had disappeared into the rest of the house.

"Nothing," Tony shook his head, thinking it wiser to keep his own council on the fact that his new assistant lifted at least fifty pounds as if it were nothing. "My new assistant, we found out where she was living, had to hold an intervention."

"New assistant?"

"While Pepper's gone, remember old man?"

"Yeah, yeah." Rhodes rolled his eyes at Tony's usual antics.


	5. Chapter 4

"So you ran away," Pepper concluded, once she'd told her story. Buffy was relieved that there didn't seem to be judgment in her voice, instead, there was understanding. 

"They deserve better than being part of this," she shrugged, burying her feet into the sand where they'd dragged out a couple of the deck chairs to talk without Tony hovering, as he had been for the last several days. 

"Your mom, though, she has to be really worried," Pepper pointed out. "The things we say when we're angry, we don't really mean them." 

"I know, I just..." she trailed off, not sure how to respond, she wanted to protect them, protect her mother. 

"You want to protect her, I understand. I bet she understands too," she nodded, agreeing. "You know, the office phones, you can set them to block the number, so you could call and she wouldn't be able to find you through it. That would give you the time you need." 

"Thanks," she smiled, feeling better about that uncertain feeling of not quite telling them the truth of the matter. 

Pepper eventually left her alone on the beach, and she curled herself up into the chair. Nothing she tried seemed to let her relax; a body in motion that stayed in motion. A rest on the beach, brought a nightmare of Angel that had been plaguing her all summer. 

"Annie," the name filtered in as Angel was saying her name, her _real_ name. "Annie, wake up." 

The sword plunged into his stomach, and there behind him was Acathla ready to drag him into hell. 

"Annie, wake up," something was shaking her and she was snapping to attention on the beach, registering with a jolt where she was, there behind her was the spatial Malibu mansion she'd been living in the last few days. There beside her was Tony, looking very concerned. "You ok?" 

"Huh? Yeah, I'm fine," Buffy nodded, distractedly, feeling nothing of the sort, and the look on his face proved he didn't believe her. 

"Come on. Dinner's ready," he looped an arm over her shoulder and walked her back up to the deck, where he and Happy had been playing with the grill and some sort of flame device that he'd said was a prototype earlier in the day. 

 

"You sure about her?" Happy asked, watching as Tony walked down to the beach to get Buffy for dinner. 

"Well, I asked her to keep an eye out for him. Babysit, was the term I used, actually, and I'm going to ask him to look out for her," Pepper explained. 

"Convince them they're both in charge?" Happy asked, grinning. 

"Exactly," she nodded, before adding dryly, "So it's up to you to keep them out of trouble." 

"You say that like it'll be hard," he joked. 

"Remember that conversation we had once about vampires?" she asked carefully. 

"Yeah," he acknowledged, then paused, watching as Tony and Buffy neared the steps to the deck. He suddenly felt like things were going to get a lot more interesting and he'd never really liked that kind of interesting. "Oh." 

 

"This is the Summers’ residence, please leave a message after the tone," Joyce's voice spoke cheerfully, the same recorded message they'd had since moving in. She remembered her mom trying to convince her to do a joint message, but she'd just rolled her eyes and declined. Maybe, in another universe, she'd instead agreed and they had some cute quirky message instead. 

"Hey mom, it's me, I just wanted to let you know I'm ok," she spoke carefully, though her voice cracked a bit anyways. "I love you." 

 

"I'm really sorry," Buffy's words rang through the house, as Joyce opened the front door. Hearing the familiar voice, she dropped the groceries she'd been carrying and ran for the hall phone, only to lift up the receiver and hear dial tone. 

It would take a couple days to find out that the call wasn't traceable. It would take another couple days after that for Giles to manage to convince Joyce that she didn't need to sit by the phone all the time. If Buffy called once, she'd probably call again. What mattered though was that she was ok and she obviously missed her mom. 

From then on, whoever was helping out with patrol would make an extra stop at the Summers house to check in on Joyce, see if there was anything they could do. Secretly hoping for news each time, while she was hoping for news from them in return. Maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't be the only one that would get a call, and someone could find out where her baby had gone. 

 

She was sleeping on the couch again, curled into a tight ball, while the TV played an infomercial quietly. He didn't really care, but he kind of did, because there she was, having another nightmare, her arms moving in the same way they had when she'd fallen asleep in the beach lounger. 

"Hey, Annie, wake up," he shook her shoulder gently, only to find himself flipped over, face into the carpet, and his arm locked hard behind his back. "It's me, Tony. Kind of hard to breath down here." 

"Sorry," she mumbled after a deep breath or two, letting him go. 

"Yeah, next time I wake you up from a nightmare, I'm throwing water on you," he grinned, attempting a joke. Maybe, having already seen what a skilled fighter she was, he should've tried that from the start. 

She glared at him, but didn't give him any response. 

"Come on, you can make yourself useful. It helps to have something to do, you know, when you're avoiding sleep," he told her pointedly, as he started walking to the garage workshop, glad she followed. He could use the help in the workshop if he was going to work through the ideas he was playing with. 

To his great disappointment, he ended up losing a night of thought processing to teaching her what the tools were and how they were used. The only good thing was that she was a quick study and they wouldn't have to repeat the tutorial if she was going to help him out in the future.


	6. Chapter 5

Pepper's flight left Friday night and somehow, even though it was a weekend, the house seemed quieter, emptier. He knew Annie was around, but hadn't managed to figure out where. Eventually, hitting a block in his latest project, Tony left his workroom and started off on his own personal search mission. Of course, she was hiding in the last place he looked. Also, she wasn't hiding, so much as making complete and full use of the in-home gym. She started talking before he'd even walked into the room, still working out.

"Your hooks aren't sturdy," she told him, swinging a solid kick into the punching bag, which caused the bag to start swinging hard until she brought it to a stop.

"Yeah, well, you're stronger than the average person, right?" he asked, getting straight to the point.

"Doesn't mean you shouldn't have better hooks," she was quick to reply.

He'd been watching her for the last week. The fighting she'd done to save him that night in the alley had been too skilled. She'd been mostly good at hiding it, but there were little things that should've taken some effort that she managed with ease. He'd attempted to ask several times, but every time Pepper had found some way to distract him. There was no doubt that she knew, they were thick as thieves. Plus, when did Pepper ever listen to him when it came to suggesting a girl be employed near him? That alone would have been enough to tell him something was up, if he hadn't managed to see it with his own eyes.

"I'm offended, really, that you'd tell Pepper and not me," he continued, watching her with a quirked eyebrow. "I mean, I did find you."

"I'm pretty sure I found you," she answered wryly, and thinking of the night she'd saved his life, he did have to agree.

"Alright, you're right, you did find me, and you get no small amount of appreciation from me, promise," he put his hands in the air, watching as she took a few far too strong swings at the punching bag. "But seriously, you could've totally let me in on the secret first."

"Need to know basis," she told him with a bit of a snap in her tone.

"And I don't need to know?"

"I'm your assistant, not your body guard, you don't need to know what I can and can't do," she glared, stepping away from the punching bag and unwrapping her hands.

"I'll need to know if I'm going to help you." She hadn't picked up that he was definitely going to help her. He hadn't been scribbling ideas all week for nothing.

"There's nothing to help, I'm retired." There was a darkness to her tone that definitely sounded more like defeat than anything else.

"Says the girl who saved my life." She froze and he grinned, knowing he'd caught her. "You can't just walk away from this, can you? Can you really just stand by?"

"There's someone else to take my place." He watched the resigned look on her features as she grabbed a towel from where she'd dropped it nearby, though from what he could see, she had barely sweated, if at all.

"So you weren't planning on going clubbing tonight and seeing if there was anyone else being preyed on? With that new ID Pepper got you, you have much better access than you did before." It took some effort, but he thought he might have managed to keep the smirk off his face. Given her look in response, he probably failed though.

She lifted an eyebrow, and he knew she was wondering just what Pepper had told him. However, he had his own ways of knowing what was going on around him. The fact that she'd made the call from his home phone to her fake document guy, who he'd convinced her to use on a couple of occasions before, didn't hurt either. He was curious how fake her ID was. He had been pretty drunk when they'd met, but given that they had to work together both publicly and on this new private project he'd already decided to help her with, he would keep quiet...for once.

"I can get you into any club," he told her when she didn't answer.

"Please, I can probably get _you_ into any club," she rolled her eyes, and he instinctively checked her out in all her toned glory.

"Well, true, you are a very attractive young woman," he smirked. Then, seeing that wasn't working, attempted a different tactic, he begged. "Please, let me help. I can be useful."

 

"This is such a dumb idea," she shook her head as she led the way into the club, and he strutted excitedly beside her, knowing he was barely hiding his enthusiasm for the adventure at hand.

"This is a great idea," he grinned, scoping out the club in his usual fashion. There was a reason he liked this particular place in town, though it was the same one he'd been attacked at, so maybe he needed to rethink things.

She rolled her shoulders, stood up taller and followed him to the VIP section. Surveying the floor from above several minutes later, she obviously saw something as she ignored the drinks appearing at the table and disappeared down below again. Over the course of the next hour, she disappeared from and returned to the VIP section several times.

Five minutes had passed after she'd disappeared from the dance floor for the third time and he found himself worrying. It was an odd feeling, he didn't like it one bit and quickly followed in the direction she'd gone, carefully pulling out the flask of holy water she'd armed him with earlier.  
The door to the alley was still wedged open, and he carefully made sure it didn't close behind him as he opened it. There was dust everywhere and she was leaning against the brick wall practically hyperventilating.

He heard Pepper's parting words in his head, as he watched her take deep breaths attempting to calm herself.

_Keep an eye out for her._

He'd teased Pepper about the comment, but seeing her here now in the alley, he remembered her only days before, restless, obviously in the throes of a nightmare. The defeat in her eyes earlier when she tried to convince them both that she was actually retired from this gig, whatever it was exactly, was back full blast.

"Hey, you ok?" he asked, pulling her into a hug, his hand rubbing large circles over her back the way he vaguely remembered his mom doing when he was upset as a kid.

She pushed him away and looked as fierce as ever, any sign of panic or stress gone.

"You aren't supposed to follow me, remember?" she growled out, brushing past him and through the wedged open door.

"It's been like five minutes, you didn't come back," he pointed out, feeling a bit angry over her response.

"That's the whole reason you can't follow me. If I go down, what's supposed to stop whatever it was I lost to from taking you out too?" she was practically yelling, furious, obviously still ready for a fight.

"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard," he called her out on it without hesitation, because, really, even if she was right, it was stupid. "There's no way I'm staying up there partying while you're out there hurt."

Both hands slid through his hair, this was frustrating in a way he couldn't even put to words. He could see her diffusing at his own anger, and as frustrated as he felt, he could still see her leaning against the wall in the alley. He threw his arm around her shoulder and guided her out of the hall, back towards the entrance and straight out of the club.

"Come on, let's figure out a better plan."


	7. Chapter 6

A/N: I just want to say THANK YOU for the overwhelming amount of support for this story. It just really makes me feel awesome that this is getting such a positive response.

~*~

Chapter 6

Buffy watched as he sat down in front of his drafting table, and started pulling out a stack of plans. She took a wild guess and bet that he'd started working on this shortly after she'd saved him. 

"Hey," he snapped as she tugged the pages out of his hands. 

"This doesn't work, the wood has to actually touch them. That's basically just a bullet, and you'll have angry vampires on your hands," she told him, dropping one of the pages back in front of him again. Then dropped another page on top of it. "This would be impossible to carry around without being noticed, but it looks like fun." 

"Good for military applications then?" he asked, managing to actually be sincere, no sarcasm. When he was talking about something that interested him, he let off on the persona. 

"Actually, yeah," she nodded, sorting out some of the pages from the stack and dropping them in front of him. "Most of them look like they'd be good for that kind of use, but I don't get some of the others." 

"This one would need field testing to verify its uses. We could rig up a prototype decently fast. The issue is making sure it doesn't become a distraction if it doesn't work," he explained, pulling out one that looked like a small like ball. 

"What does it do exactly?" she dragged a stool over and sat down so they could finally get into the details. 

"Emits UV light. You said sunlight kills them." 

"Yeah, but a UV flashlight doesn't do anything. Tested that once when I was feeling bored." 

"Maybe wave frequencies used for tanning would work," he suggested, grabbing a pencil and erasing and rewriting the information he'd scribbled on the mechanisms of the device. In a tone that sounded like he was faking casual, he asked, "So what was that in the alley?" 

"It was nothing," she brushed it off, carefully watching him scribble out notes, not quite certain what everything meant. "I was just -" 

"Having a panic attack. At least that's what it looked like," he interrupted, not looking up, giving her that space, which she appreciated, but it definitely didn't mean she wanted to talk about things anymore. Telling Pepper had been hard enough. "Something bad happened, right?" 

"Yeah," her voice was quite, she wasn't even sure it had actually come out. 

"People only work at Helen’s if something bad happened," he pointed out before dropping his pencil. "I can build a basic prototype, but I might need the R&D guys' help to get this done with any speed." 

"I can test it when it's ready, just, you know, show me how it works," she answered, waving her hand at the complex designs. 

In the short term, he designed a false handle system for a clutch purse. That way she could carry stakes with her into clubs that had far better security than she was used to. Skinny as the stakes were, at least she wouldn't have to hope for wood in the alley, a generally unpredictable circumstance. Between the two of them, they had a working version ready before going out again two days later. While they didn't manage to rig anything that satisfied her concerns about him following her into danger (or her fears over her friends that had already done so far too many times), they had come up with plans that could be worked out and put to action. 

 

"Tony, wake up." She swiftly went around and opened the curtains, watching as the light blinded him for a moment. "I'll have a cup of coffee for you as soon as you get dressed." 

"How are you so perky? You were out as late as I was," he groaned, rolling over and burying his face in the down pillows of his bed. "It's not fair." 

"Get up, you've got meetings," she rolled her eyes, pulling a pre-approved suit and shirt pairing from the closet. 

"You were supposed to be the fun one," he glared, finally stepping out of bed to take the clothes she held out. 

"Maybe you shouldn't come with me when I go out on work nights, if it makes getting up too hard," she mused faux seriously. 

"Fine then, I was going to see if you wanted to help me test the new flame thrower, guess you're not interested," he teased, as he disappeared into the bathroom. 

"And here I thought you wanted coffee," she joked back, leaving the room to go back downstairs. 

"Hey!" came the yell from behind her. 

 

"Miss Gallagher," Obadiah Stane greeted sternly, as he moved to pass her desk, where Buffy had been grabbing her notes for the meeting, towards the door to Tony’s office. 

"I'm sorry, Mr. Stane, he's in a meeting and asked not to be disturbed," she quickly dodged to block him from the doorway. She could imagine what Pepper had meant when she'd said that the older man had used to intimidate her, but thankfully being the slayer meant he was small beans compared to what she'd faced. 

"Yes, I know, with the R&D team, I should be in there," he looked exasperated, but definitely sounded angry as he attempted to side step her. 

Despite being small, she held her ground with ease. 

"I'm sorry, he specifically asked that this meeting be kept only to the team scheduled," she replied, blocking his path one last time. "I can let him know you stopped by when the meeting's over." 

He stepped forwards into her space, towering over her, and she instinctually stepped forwards, rather than backwards. The slayer side of her didn't quite understand the concept of backing down to anything. Thankfully, his own instinct was better, and he back tracked his initial move forwards. 

"Annie, do you have those notes?" Tony asked, leaning out through one of the set of double doors leading into his office. 

"Was just on my way in," she forced a smile, not quite turning to face him, keeping Obadiah clearly in her line of sight as slayer instincts demanded. 

"Tony, talk to your girl, she won't let me in," his voice bellowed, as he once more attempted to crowd her out of the way, a movement she didn't allow. Calling her _girl_ was definitely not the way to get her to do something. 

"Yeah, don't worry about it, I'll fill you in later," he waved his hand distractedly, focusing in on her. "Come on, we've gotta figure this out." 

 

When Obadiah questioned him later, Tony brushed the meeting off to being about the prototype upgrades he'd been working on for the new house. Things he'd been testing out on the old house and problems that he, Pepper and Annie had all run into. All of which was actually true, as Annie could attest after a failed coffee pot test had backfired dramatically only that morning. While Obadiah apparently disliked the idea of using company resources to handle the house automation project Tony had been working on, he was at least smart enough to recognize the marketability of basic conveniences, like smarter coffee machines and refrigerators that could tell when things needed to be replaced. 

"You're not gonna tell him?" she asked when Obadiah had left the office, looking rather surprised. 

"Not my secret," he shrugged, giving one of his trademark smirks. "Just make sure to file the finance for the stuff under the house bits and we're good. Pepper can finesse the rest of it when she gets back." 

"You're having too much fun with this," she rolled her eyes, channeling Pepper far too well. 

"Come on, it _is_ fun," he grinned finally, ignoring the worried expression on her face.


	8. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Apologies for the lateness on this chapter. The last few days have been crazy and I try not to mess with posting from the office, so here we are. I'll still post the next chapter Monday/Tuesday as usual, promise! By the end of this, you'll notice a running gag, it's pretty much a running gag, but there are reasonable back stories for all of it. So much love for the amazing response this has gotten, it feels pretty insane. Lots of thanks to my editor, she's been super helpful.

She wore one of the gowns Pepper had helped her pick out, dark blue and long, with bare shoulders. Her hair was pulled back straight over the top of her head without a part. For the first time, she felt like an adult, not because she could die at any moment, but because she was living. 

"Your car awaits, mademoiselle," Happy bowed to her jokingly as she walked into the living room, where Tony was already pacing around the bar attempting to come up with excuses not to go. 

"Thank you," Buffy grinned back, dipping a slight curtsy, remembered so clearly from her Halloween escapade as a damsel. Turning to Tony, she checked for the fifth time that day, "You're going to head out in half an hour, right?" 

"Sure, yeah," he nodded, rolling his shoulders, looking not uncomfortable in the tux, but uncomfortable in his own skin. 

 

As per Pepper's instructions, Buffy waited for Tony's arrival at the entrance to the event, which was celebrating some announcement that had been in the works for months. Had someone asked, she could've recited the details backwards and forwards, but ultimately it all went a little over her head, new as she was to all of it.

When he arrived, he took his time and enjoyed the red carpet entrance. He gave her one quick nod at the doorway, and disappeared into the crowd. That haunting feeling of being alone nagged a bit at the back of her mind, and she kept a low profile as she walked into the main hall for the event, having no real responsibility for the rest of the night. Obie would handle pressing Tony into giving a speech, she was glad to be off that duty. 

"You look about as lost as I feel," the words interrupted her thoughts, the thoughts that had been specifically about how this was definitely not her domain. When she glanced over, she recognized him distantly, "Annie, right?" 

"It's Anne, actually," she forced a grinned, holding back the desire to correct with her real name, as she caught on that he was teasing and not just being bullheaded the way that Tony was. "Rhodey, right?" 

"Yeah, I'm the Air Force liaison, pretty sure I get toted out just to show the strong military connection," he laughed. 

"I thought you guys were friends?" she arched an eyebrow, Tony's _friends_ always seemed to be people that worked for him in one way or another. 

"Well, that too," and he laughed. 

"I bet you've got some great stories," she joined in as he grabbed two flutes of champagne from a passing waiter. 

It turned out he didn't have just one or two stories, but a whole collection, each as amusing as the one before. Much of the evening passed before she felt that creeping up her spine, the nerve endings twitching, vampires had definitely crashed the party. Buffy the vampire slayer, no matter how she dressed or where she was. 

"I'm sorry, I just realized, I'm supposed to be checking on things, making sure everything's running smoothly," she made her excuses, missing Rhodey's expression of amusement as she dashed towards the back entrance, into the banquet halls that weren't supposed to be in use at the hotel that night. 

There were several well-dressed people, possible party crashers walking towards her, just one hallway away from the party. Two couples, all looking surprised to see her and she repositioned her clutch in front of her carefully. 

"Party's this way, right, babe?" one of the guys asked, gesturing towards the hall she'd come from. 

"I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to see your invitations, it's a private party," she replied in the brattiest blond voice she could manage. 

"What are you, security?" one of the women laughed. "Move along, kid." 

"Isn't it past your bedtime?" the other woman joined in. 

"Isn't it past your lifespan?" she retorted, sliding a stake out of the clutch handle, and moving into a fighting position. 

The guys took the run at her first, and she slammed the stake into the first one without any hesitation. The second one ducked and moved, attempting to let the women still get past towards the party, but she held her ground and sent him flying back a few yards with a well-aimed kick. Her dress tore as she moved, but there wasn't anything she could do about it. Slaying was always hell on the wardrobe. The women were young and went down easy, attempting to protect the guy, who was even angrier and ready for a fight once he was the only one. He landed a punch to her face, and, when he tried for a second, she managed to duck. Grabbing the front of her dress, he pulled her up off the ground and went in for the meal. Unfortunately, he didn't take into consideration that she might attempt to head-butt him, and dropped her immediately when she did just that. She dropped and kicked his feet out from under him, staking him quickly, before he could get back up again. 

She rushed back to the hall, annoyed that vampires entirely dusted once staked. She could've used a jacket at that moment. With a quick glance around the party from the doorway, she failed to locate Tony anywhere. It took a moment, but she managed to flag down Rhodey, who had barely moved from where she'd left him shortly before and found out that Tony had just left with the brunette he'd been chatting up earlier. 

"Are you ok? What happened? We should call the cops, security at least," he insisted, checking the few scratches and cuts she'd gotten, all of which were on their way to healing already, as they stood in the hall where she'd just been fighting. 

"I'm fine, there was a security thing, it's taken care of," she shook her head, carefully holding the torn parts of her skirt together with one hand, her heels in the other. "My dress is kind of ruined though." 

"I'll go find Happy, he should still be here." He shrugged off his tux jacket and draped it over her shoulders, helping to hide the tear or fifty across her torso. 

"Hey, kid, you ok?" Happy asked without hesitation when he saw her. 

"I'm fine, same old same old," she smiled, appreciative that his expression didn't seem to think she'd fall apart suddenly. 

"Don't tell me, they're worse off than you are, probably piles of dust by now anyways," he grinned, and something seemed to click in Rhodey's expression as well. 

"How many?" he asked, still looking at her like he was concerned, despite figuring something out. 

"Four, nothing too difficult, but seriously, ball gowns aren't made for fighting," she shrugged and attempted a laugh, because really, what was hurting wasn't the fight, but feeling like an idiot for ruining the dress that made her feel like a real adult for the first time. Even worse though, she felt a like an idiot for thinking Tony would've waited for her. 

"I'll pull the car around back, meet me out there," Happy nodded, getting the second part, even if she didn't realize it. 

"We should talk about this," Rhodey mentioned, once Happy was gone. 

"Talk about what?" she asked, playing blond with everything from her tone to her body language. 

"Yeah, guess you're right, nothing to talk about, except you just took a risk I'd never take on my own," he pointed out, walking with her to the door that Happy had mentioned, the planned escape route for Tony had he been the one to need it. 

"It was nothing, seriously easy stuff. They don't even get how to attack as a group," she shook her head, keeping an eye on their surroundings, ever aware. 

"They were smart enough to figure out how to crash an event like this one," another pointed expression. 

"Yeah, getting that a lot around here, the ones back home are almost as noticeable for their bad fashion choices as, you know, the fangs," she laughed, opening the door and stepping out into the cool summer night. 

"Just, you know, be careful," he told her, watching as Happy pulled the Bentley up and jumped out to open the back door for her. 

"Mind if I ride up front? It's kind of weird riding in the back all the time," she suggested, joining Happy by the car. 

"Sounds good, kid," he agreed, patting her on the shoulder. 

"Hey, Rhodey," she called out, standing in the open door of the front passenger seat. 

"Yeah?" he couldn't help but wonder just what she had to say next. 

"Don't tell anyone, ok?" 

"You got it," he laughed, with a wave, before stepping back inside, as she climbed into the car. 

"Can you drop me off at Pepper's?" she asked, once they'd pulled out of the hotel's parking lot. "She gave me the key, just in case. Super hearing can be a pain." 

"Super hearing too? Jeeze, you guys really kept me out of the loop," Happy shook his head, but glancing at the small frown on her face, he laughed, making sure to keep it cheerful. 

"Yeah, well, turns out I really suck at having a secret identity," she laughed finally. "How long have you known?" 

"Vampires? Since my boxing days, who do you think usually keeps an eye on Tony?" he grinned. "Pepper told me how you and Tony met. It's hard to keep an eye out when he goes off clubbing on his own, but at least he's usually high enough profile." 

She laughed, because there was nothing else to do. Tony, who so easily dodged security teams, was most protected by his driver, his assistant and his notoriety. 

 

"Hey, Tony, give me a call when you get a chance. It's about your assistant," Rhodey left a message, not surprised Tony hadn't answered. Tony Stark was most definitely already preoccupied.


	9. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This is mostly a cute chapter, but hopefully not considered filler. :-)

Happy arrived bright and early at Peppers' the next morning. Instead of his customary weekday suit, he was dressed in a loud Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts, prepped and ready for the summery weekend day ahead. A more pleasant image than the torn dress of the night before, Buffy had donned one of the easy outfits Pepper had insisted she keep at the apartment, a t-shirt and simple shorts. Pepper knew Tony well enough to recognize that back up accommodations would make everything go more smoothly. She was grateful for Pepper's foresight and insistence. 

"You know, there's a really good farmer's market around the corner that Pepper usually goes to on Sunday mornings," he told her, when she met him by the parked car.

"Cool, the fridge is getting kind of empty," she grinned, as she threw the grocery bag filled with her destroyed gown from the night before into the trunk.

"They start early, so she tries to go before dealing with Tony," he grinned in return and earning a laugh from Buffy.

 

"Pepper went through the same thing too, you know," Happy told her, as they were driving to Stark Manor. 

"Huh?" she looked up sharply, looking genuinely confused.

"You now, that thing, where Tony's really charming, but then he completely ignores you, like he did last night. He does that, it's a thing," he explained and she seemed to get what he was getting at. "He's got his own deal going on. Pepper and I are pretty sure he's afraid of people leaving, but he keeps things pretty close to the chest."

"Oh, yeah, I mean, I get that," she nodded thoughtfully. "I have, had, these friends. They used to help me, but it got really bad and they got hurt, so I left. I couldn't handle it if they ended up dead because of me. People _did_ die because of me, because I couldn't be there."

"You can't be everywhere, it's not possible, kid," Happy told her, hoping that maybe it would click that no matter if she thought it was her fault, it definitely wasn't. 

"Yeah, well, I figured when I got here that I wouldn't do that again. I couldn't do that again. But Tony figured out a way to help without putting himself right in the middle of a fight, and, I don't know, I got used to someone having my back again." He could hear the sadness in her tone, as much as she tried to keep her expression light. Finally, what Pepper had said and _hadn't_ said clicked.

"That's what you told Pepper about, isn't it?" he maneuvered the car down the drive way, going slower than he usually might. 

"Yep," the p popped as she finished the word and he was reminded of how young she had looked the previous night in her torn dress.

"Well, Tony does have your back, but so do I, and I'm betting Rhodey will too, now that he knows," he pointed out, pulling the car to a stop. "You know, I used to be a boxer. Sometimes, after a match, there'd be one or two vampires floating around, hoping for a straggler. If we help you, it's because we can, and because you shouldn't be doing this on your own. None of us are going into this blind."

He climbed out of the car, and grabbed a couple of bags from the trunk, leaving her to trail in behind him. Maybe, if she didn't have to worry about them, she could start thinking about herself.

 

"Where've you guys been?" Tony asked, as they walked into the kitchen, an empty coffee cup and a stack of design pages in front of him. 

"Stopped at the farmers' market," Happy grinned, hefting bags he was holding, as Buffy dropped hers on the counter and began emptying out their purchases.

"Got everything we need for a lazy weekend grilling day," she grinned as well, as she began putting things away into their proper places.

"Do we need to clear out any guests?" Happy asked, putting his own bags on the counters and adding their contents to the stack, and Buffy appreciated that he was offering to help. Herding out Tony's hook-ups had never been a function of the job she looked forward to.

"Huh?" Tony looked confused for a moment, he must've gotten up pretty early. "Nah, did that when I realized _no one_ was around to help me in the workshop." 'No one' was spoken while he stared at Buffy, and she furrowed her brow for a small moment, before clearing her expression and continuing to handle the farmer's market finds.

"I crashed at Pepper's, figured you'd like the privacy. Hey, Happy, how about waffles for brunch, the waffle iron is in that cabinet," she answered, pulling a selection of berries out of the pile of produce. "We could make blueberry ones."

"I don't think those big ones cook as well, but we could make a compote sauce instead," Happy laughed, digging in the directed cabinet and pulling out a waffle iron that had probably only ever been used by caterers and hired chefs.

"Oh, that sounds yummy," Buffy grinned, clearing the last of the unneeded foods off the counter and pulling out flour and a mixing bowl. "I ate a pint of ice cream last night, after those vamps, but I'm still starving."

"Wait, you went out slaying after the party?" Tony snapped, his attention immediately refocused. Then, because Happy hadn't seemed fazed by the conversation at all, he added, "Since when do you know about vampires?"

"Ages," came Happy's response, easy, as if this was all completely normal.

"Nope, at the party," Buffy answered at the same time, grinning for real at the spoiled child pout now on Tony's face.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, not quite sure which one he was aiming that at, but wanting to know from both of them.

"You were busy," Buffy shrugged, and Happy let her answer stand as they got to work prepping the waffle mix. "So who here actually knows how to make compote? Because I definitely don't."

"I've got it," Tony sighed, sounding a bit defeated, as he finally got up from the breakfast table and joined them by the kitchen island.

 

"Rhodey called, said it was something about you," Tony told Buffy, putting his plate of grilled meats and veggies on the deck table, next to where she'd seated herself. 

"He went to get Happy, the vamps kind of ruined my dress, so I couldn't just walk through the party looking for you guys," she answered, before taking a bite of steak, savoring it. That was definitely the best cure for how hungry slaying made her.

"Are you really still starving?" Tony asked, surprised, watching her put away the large steak almost methodically. "You ate like six waffles only a few hours ago."

"Carbs, they burn right up," she answered simply. "Rhodey obviously knew something about it. You should see how involved in demon hunting the military is, see what kind of equipment they're working with."

"Yeah, was thinking about that, but didn't want to tell Rhodey if he didn't already know," he nodded in agreement as Happy joined them.

"Sounds like he does, he didn't pay the dust too much attention," Happy added.

"Yeah, pretty sure he was calling me stupid for slaying them," Buffy couldn't help but grumble a bit. As nice as Rhodey had been the night before, she didn’t appreciate the implication that she'd been stupid for doing exactly what she was supposed to do.

"Four's more than I would ever take on," Happy pointed out, expression saying more than enough.

"Yeah, well, vampire slayer here, kind of my job," she answered, rolling her eyes. 

"Actually, you work for me, doing not dangerous stuff -" Tony started, only to be interrupted.

"Yeah, cause the coffee machine exploding wasn't dangerous," Buffy laughed.

"Well, that was -"

"Or when your stake shooting thing, backfired and almost gutted me," she continued.

"Hey, you caught that. Everything was good," he looked a bit like he was pouting and it only fueled her laughter, enough so that even Happy let out a chuckle too, earning his own glare from the younger man.

"You know, they already have a stake shooting thing, it's called a crossbow," she continued, enjoying that they weren't watching their conversations around Happy anymore.

"How am I supposed to sneak a crossbow into a club? Explain that to me," Tony answered, falling into the trap of the well-worn argument.

"You're the genius here," she giggled, and he resorted to the most childish thing she'd seen him do yet, stuck his tongue out at her. The nearly hysterical laughter that triggered caused her to lean back, accidentally tipping her chair off balance and slamming backwards to the ground, an event that only caused her to blush, and Tony to finally start laughing too.


	10. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: so the posting schedule is officially out of wack, but that means it's getting really super edited.
> 
> Also, I just want to send a super massive thank you to everyone for the love. My ego has been officially been boosted.

"Come on, keep your eyes closed," Tony urged, as he walked Annie down the stairs towards the workshop, his hands blocking her eyes.

"What's going on?" she asked, sounding a bit irritated, but managing to navigate the stairs with ease. He pretended that it was because he was a spectacular guide, even though he knew better.

"It's a surprise. A Fourth of July surprise. Just wait a second, won't you?" He grinned.

"Would Pepper put up with this?" she asked, and he knew she would be shooting him a glare if her eyes weren’t covered.

"She'd be way slower, you've seen her heels," he pointed out, trying to keep his amusement out of his voice.

"Fine, lead away," she sighed, and he refused to be insulted that she sounded bored. The surprise was totally worth it.

"That's better," he nodded, before guiding her to stand in front of his work desk, where he'd arranged several large monitors. "Ok, now you can look."

She stood quietly for a moment, taking in the large computer system he'd build.

"What's it for?"

"At its most basic, it controls the house. That was the programming I started ages ago. But, I've updated it, so it scans police records and news blotters all over the world to see where crime is randomly spiking, specifically unusual crime."

"Like a large number of people getting stabbed with barbeque forks?"

"Exactly."

"Wow, that's a lot." He waited while she started testing out the controls. "So we can get our crime reports in the same place we find out if we need milk."

"Yup."

"What's it called?"

"I thought I might call it JARVIS. I'll figure out what it stands for later," he mumbled, taking over the computer station again.

"Where to first?" she asked immediately, and he was grateful that she was smart enough to keep the conversation moving.

"Ibiza, something's been attacking kids at the underground parties. There're some vampires, and maybe something else. I'll bring up the files for you."

"Of course it would involve parties." She rolled her eyes, but he could tell she wasn't serious.

"Well I am Tony Stark," he grinned pointedly. "Anyways, I thought maybe we could get some of those demon books you were talking about and upload the information, create a database of sorts, make it easier to figure out what's going on based on the crime reports. We could scan them and–"

"No, no scanning demon books into computers," she shook her head, this time definitely serious.

"It would make things go pretty quickly," he explained, she didn't appear to get what he was saying.

"No, been there, done that, scanning demon books means demons getting second lives in computers, totally bad idea," she answered, keeping her tone firm and looking like there was way more to the story.

"Wait, seriously?" he was surprised. “It would really make things easier, we could just plug in details and get an answer–”

"Right,” she interrupted, “but turns out that scanning has the same effect as reading out loud, so we stay away from that, especially with the magic books." 

When he looked at her, finally giving her his full focus, he saw immediately that same incredible sadness he’d seen when he found her in the alley almost a month before. Instead of looking like she was about to panic though, she looked tough and stern. He couldn’t help but wonder who the ‘we’ she’d mentioned happened to be, but how was he supposed to even address that – or her sadness – when she’d mentioned magic books.

"Magic books?" he was laughing at the thought. "Aren't those for Goth kids in their basements?"

"Except for the ones that aren't," she grinned, though he could see she was forcing it. Biting his tongue, he shook his head and laughed, still not believing her. Vampires and demons, they could be explained with the right research, he was sure of it. Turning to dust could be some sort of exothermic reaction, and if he hadn't promised not to poke at vampires for the summer, he'd have it figured out by now.

"Got it," he agreed anyways, scanning files for hours sounded pretty boring anyways. "So no scanning, database is a long term plan then."

"How in control is the computer?" she asked as he clicked around, showing her how to use it.

"It's pretty basic right now, nothing fancy, but I'm working on ideas," he grinned, feeling pretty proud of himself.

"Just maybe don't give it a body, or you know, make it able to kill," she suggested, feeling her skin crawl as she thought about how advanced a robot Ted had been.

Tony gave her a look, narrowed his eyes, and simply commanded, "Explain."

"Some guy built a completely sentient robot and it tried to kill us, looked really freakily human too. Not really in the mood to face another one of those anytime soon, especially if you're the one building it," she answered quickly, not spilling any real details.

"Wow, that's pretty advanced, do you have any of the parts still? That could be useful," he answered, already distracted by potential.

"Uh-uh, nope, not happening," she shook her head.

 

She parted ways with the wayward scientist as caterers arrived to set up for the party. Pepper had taught her better than to let him just invite people over, buy some booze, then label it a party. The incredibly extensive notes and instructions left for her had filled in enough insane random details to handle everything from caterers to pilots, as well as the striper stewardesses that Tony apparently preferred – except gross. There were at least ten moments a day that she found herself incredibly grateful to the older woman, and she was already trying to figure out a good gift for her return. 

Handling the last minute details was better said than done and she couldn’t help but feel her attention wavering. Helping Tony in the lab had been a wonderful portion of her summer, and she’d surprisingly found herself learning a lot more about mechanics than she’d ever imagined. She couldn’t help but wonder just how much of it was her poorly used intelligence and how much was the instinctive stuff that came as part of the slayer package. For all that though, she hadn’t helped him out with programming on that particular computer, and honestly hadn’t realized how much time Tony had been plugging away at the program he’d put together.

His desire to help her pinged at the concerns she’d been having about her Sunnydale friends. Talking with Happy had only reminded her that if people were trying to help her, it wasn’t necessarily her job to stop them. The way he spoke, there wasn’t any doubt that without her, he’d have done what he could to keep the vampires out of the party anyways. He and Pepper had obviously been working together to keep Tony out of trouble without drawing attention to the issue. If she had met Tony in any other way, she would have expected Pepper and Happy to hate her rather than offer her friendship. There it was though, she’d once again found a team that wanted to help her, and she couldn’t help but be worried about them and about the friends she’d left behind.

By the time Tony was talking excitedly about the Stark Industries designed fireworks, she could only managed a sigh at his excited – ‘I can make all kinds of things explode’ – and a roll of her eyes at the leer he was giving a red head across the room. 

She couldn’t help but think about how out of place she felt at one of Tony’s bashes. Almost more so than she had at the ritzy company event. At least there she was technically working. Here, she just happened to live at the house. It wasn’t hard for her to imagine just what Xander and Willow were up to around Sunnydale for the night.

She grabbed a set of keys sometime around dawn, the decision hadn’t been difficult. The long drive was calming, and, though it had started out aimless, she quickly found herself on the familiar route to Sunnydale. She kept the top down and enjoyed the ocean air, keeping as close to the coast as she could. Just outside of town, she put the top back up, not quite wanting to risk anyone noticing her in the early morning hours.

Driving slowly past her house, she saw her mom coming out and loading her work tote into the passenger seat of the family SUV. While she certainly looked tired, her mother looked ok, and she couldn't help but be comforted by that. Of all the people she worried about most in Sunnydale, it was certainly her mother. She watched for a moment, aware that the car she'd borrowed was rather noticeable, and when it looked like her mom was looking up and might see her, she sped up and left the neighborhood.

She drove around for a bit, trying to talk herself into going home to stay, but the thought just wouldn’t take. Pulling into a parking space in front of the Espresso Pump, she convinced herself she'd just run in and get something caffeinated to drink. After being up all night, it felt like a good plan. Just her luck though, as she started to unbuckle, she saw Xander and Oz sitting at one of the tables out front, a jacket that looked distinctly Willow thrown on one of the nearby chairs. She hesitated, watching them long enough that her cellphone started ringing.

"Hey," she greeted, answering the call, before giving the table one last look.

They looked healthy and relatively happy, most important though, they were safe. They were sitting out in daylight acting like normal teens, not locked away researching or out fighting by her side. She couldn’t help but feel better about her decision to leave. 

"Where are you?" Tony asked immediately, as she shifted gears and pulled the car back into traffic, the lure of her new life pulling her back in.

"I went for a long drive. How are you up already?" she asked, directing the car towards the road out of town.

"Haven't gone to sleep yet, had some ideas, wanted to go over them," he answered. "How long will it take to get back?"

"Um, three hours," she answered hesitantly. "Maybe less, if I can get some speed, but people are on the roads already."

"Where'd you drive to?" he sounded concerned rather than angry and she felt bad for a moment not telling everyone, or anyone, the whole truth.

"I just needed to clear my head, ended up in some town, turning around now," she explained, being as truthful as possible without really saying it all. "Did the party all clear out or are there still people around?"

"People," he answered grouchily, when he moved on to something else, he didn't have time to deal with the previous thing.

"I'll call Happy and have him come get things back to order. We've got a cleaning team on standby, remember? So I'll call them too," and she jumped into what was easy, what made the summer functional – keeping busy and focused. "Can I get anything on my way in?"

"Food would be good," he sounded more agreeable. Then, before hanging up, he instructed, "Hurry up, ok. We should fly out for Ibiza sometime today."

She imagined he'd be prouder of her if she hit the accelerator and tested just how fast the car could really go. She laughed to herself in the silence of the car, before starting in on the necessary calls. Adding the pilot and crew to the call list, she followed Pepper's well given instructions of only a month before.

 

"Holy wow, did you see that car?" Xander asked excited, as Willow came back out to join him and Oz in front of the Espresso Pump. Glancing at Oz, he continued, "Wasn't it sweet?"

"Yeah," the green-haired teen agreed.

"Missed it," Willow shrugged, sitting down with her iced coffee concoction.


	11. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Seriously, all these reviews and hits, I'm feeling super special these days. Thank you all so much for the feedback!
> 
> ~*~

_Timeline: Ibiza, post slaying._

 

_Don’t worry, Tony, I'm still the most dangerous one here._

Her words caressed him, her breath warming the shell of his ear, and then she was gone. All sexy dress and leather fabrics, moving through the crowd on the dance floor with ease. After a moment of watching, her eyes caught his, and she gestured for him to join on the floor. More than likely he was looking a bit dazed, she always seemed to catch him in those moments when he wished she wouldn't. It wasn't like he'd ever do anything. Despite her vocation, there was something good and innocent about her. Certainly not something that should exist in the, admittedly human, darkness of the world he created around him, a world full of drugs and sex and bombs.

She'd taken his flirting for what it was, harmless nothing, and gave as good as she took. Occasionally, it messed with his head, but he'd hear Pepper's voice and remember those moments when she didn't seem quite so invulnerable. While he was well known for taking advantage of situations when it came to women, he'd been terribly careful his whole life not to hurt someone he genuinely cared about. Annie had wedged her way in deep from the start, into that special part, where he sometimes thought very warmly of Pepper, a fact he swore he'd take to the grave someday. 

At first, the press read their frequent clubbing together as romantic, but their cover that he was attempting to be more serious and she was there to prevent random hook-ups ultimately worked as a great joke. However, when they were out for slaying, he kept the drinking to a minimum at her insistence. She'd refused to go slaying with him imbibing, worried about safety should something happen. While she, herself, avoided drinking out of what seemed to him to be an over-inflated need for control. As long as she wasn't having panic attacks, he wouldn't press her though. The press ended up buying their cover as mild truth. His string of hook-ups had slowed, but not stopped, while his drunken escapades for the most part petered out. It helped that Stark Industries was once again productive enough that the concept of him being a little mellowed was passable, for now. 

Truthfully, after clubbing and slaying, they continued to work on the advancements he'd been working into the house. She wasn't necessarily a genius like him, but she was a quick study and actually seemed to know more than just the basics about computers. She'd passed it off as having a hacker for a best friend. (Once she'd slipped something about a computer teacher who'd been a mentor, but when he questioned it, she'd said the woman was _gone_. The word was spoken in the way that he always said Jarvis was _gone_ , and he let it go.) 

He could see from the start that she was generally good with strategic planning and weaponry. Somehow this transferred to an understanding of basic engineering. He could always see little aspects that made them deadly. When it came to home improvement projects, he had to check her work meticulously, just in case, though he often left one or two deadly twists in place. There was something to be said about ordinary household appliances making great security. Having someone in the workshop that he could trust not to ruin things was almost as much fun as watching her slay.

When he hit the floor, he found a brunette in a sexy dress and made sure to enjoy the night. She'd given the go ahead, they were officially off duty. They had flown all the way in for a party, and he wasn't going to miss out. From the corner of his eye, he kept an eye out for her. She watched out for one sort of predator, but he was always wary of another, young as she was, dancing alone as she did. At least he didn't have to worry about the kinds of guys she took home, knowing that she wouldn't.

 

She popped the trunk while Happy was loading Tony and the lady friend he'd picked up into the car. Happy crossed behind the car, keeping a close eye on her as she pulled a short sword from the pack of weapons and slid it into the tear she'd ripped in her jacket liner for just such an activity. 

"Annie, come on, time to go," Tony called out the car window, and Happy went back to the driver's side.

"Too much adrenalin, I'm gonna go burn it off, see you guys later," she offered up, pausing by the window.

"You sure?" Happy checked, leaning over to give her a look.

"Of course," she grinned, waiting for the nod of response and the car to pull out before she slid off into the shadows to start tracking the real demon problem. Vampires certainly hadn’t explained the victims missing hearts that Tony’s computer system had brought up, not that she was planning on telling him that.

 

"Anne," a voice yelled out, and she turned just in time to catch the small battle ax being thrown to her.

With an arching swipe, she caught the demon across the chest, a long deep gash that only seemed to anger it more. Catching Happy's movements out of the corner of her eye, she kept the demon focused on her, turning and moving, dodging swipes and lunges from the razor sharp claws. Happy grabbed her previously lost sword off the ground, once she'd maneuvered the demon to be facing away from it. They made eye contact and he counted down with his fingers, a quick nod and he jammed the sword into the demon's back as she lunged forwards and took off its head, while it was distracted.

"I thought you were back at the hotel?" she asked, flipping the demon over enough to pull the sword out of its back.

"Yeah, well, I saw you grab the sword and thought you could use the help," he shrugged, popping the trunk of the car he'd barely parked before lunging in to help her. 

"How'd you find me?" she asked, dropping the weapons into the container they'd devised to keep from leaving demon blood on any of the cars.

"Your cell phone has GPS, it's a Tony special," he shrugged, closing the trunk and getting behind the wheel.

"Seriously?" she groaned, sliding into the front passenger seat. "There's no chance Tony followed you, right?"

"Nah, completely distracted, but I've got the GPS tracker for his phone turned on just in case," he answered, looking at one of Tony's 'toys' that was sitting in the console. "He hasn't moved."

"Awesome, now all I need is a long bath," she sighed, sinking into the seat as he pulled back into normal traffic.

"How'd you know about that thing?" he asked, gesturing behind them with his hand.

"Vampires don't usually take hearts," she answered with a shrug, watching the city flying by out the windows. "I did some snooping, then tracked it a bit after you guys turned in last night, figured I could actually catch up to it tonight."

"I take it you don't want Tony to know?" he asked later, after he'd parked the trunk and she'd retrieved the bag of weapons from the trunk.

"Yeah, that might save us both some energy. I'll clean these tonight, no evidence," she grinned.

"Sounds good, but completely impossible," he grinned as they walked into the hotel and headed for the elevators.

"Yeah, figured," she laughed, as the elevator doors closed.


	12. Chapter 11

Tony ranted and raved the next morning, when he found out he'd been left out of a major slaying adventure. He was even more irritated over their use of the antique weapons Annie insisted on toting around instead of the devices they'd packed 'just in case'.

"It's not fair, you left me out _again_ ," he scowled, as Annie dropped the set of weapons they'd brought with them to Ibiza by the door, next to the small collection of suitcases and garment bags that were prepped for their return home.

"You were busy," she shrugged, then rolled her eyes at his expression. "Also, we have a no slaying under the influence rule for a reason, keeping an eye out for you would've been a distraction. It was hard enough as it was."

"Uh-uh, no," he tisked immediately. "You lied, you said that it was taken care of, you said that it was just those vamps. Obviously, it was something bigger if you needed the weapons."

"I said there wasn't anything else at the party. I didn't say anything about any other threats in the city," she pointed out, remembering how carefully she'd worded it.

"Technicalities, Annie, that's what you did, you used technicalities," he felt annoyed and angry, but ultimately, he was more concerned that she'd gone out on her own, not even knowing what she was going up against. "Did you even tell Happy where you were going?"

"She didn't," Happy shook his head, his arms crossed, not giving her any room to argue her way out of it. "I had to track her phone."

"That's not ok," he almost yelled, _almost_. "You can't go out on your own like that, what if something happened."

She glared and then she stormed out. The door slammed shut behind her and the hotel seemed to fill up with silence.

"What'd you do with the tracker?" he asked Happy, feeling both righteous and a bit like an asshole. 

"It's right here," Happy nodded, handing him the device.

He turned it on and was relieved to find she hadn't ditched her phone anywhere, watching as it moved along the screen.

 

When he finally found her, she was sitting on a beach chair, watching as the boats came into the ferry terminal for the next trip out to one of the other islands, tears rolled silently down her face. He sat down on the space behind her and waited quietly. He definitely wasn’t one for dealing with issues head on, and he certainly hadn't ever been someone that people had cared enough about to show up for. With this inexperience, he had no idea of how to handle whatever was happening.

"My mom kicked me out," she told him finally, after several minutes had passed and one of the ferries had pulled out into the sea. "My boyfriend went evil, was killing people, and I needed to stop him. When I said I had to go, she told me not to come back."

The words made him feel bad, but her tone of voice, well that felt like a kick in the stomach. He'd watched her over the last month, she was never as shaky as that first near panic attack, but she always looked surprisingly vulnerable after she'd been slaying.

"Your boyfriend?" he asked carefully, his mind tying the shakiness of slaying to the fact that it sounded like she'd had to slay her own boyfriend.

"Was a vampire," she answered with an aching sigh. "He had a soul, but he lost it. He got his soul back, a friend cast the spell, but it was too late. He'd summoned hell to consume earth and the only way to stop it was his blood."

"That's..." he trailed off as he thought about it, thought about how he'd never really had a romantic relationship that meant _that_ much to him, but his friendships were so important. If that had been him facing Pepper or Rhodey or Happy...or even Annie, he couldn't see how he'd manage it. "That's total shit."

He let the words sit there for a moment as he thought of how to handle things next. Apparently, the major downturn in her life was a lot bigger than he'd previously suspected.

"Let's get some gelato for the plane," he suggested, standing up and holding out his hands. "Then we can work out how to make you believe Happy and I really do have your back."

She let out a sobbing laugh and took his hands, letting him pull her to her feet. Helping her up, he marveled, not for the first time, how someone so tiny and light could be so strong.

 

Gelato had done the trick, not a solution, but definitely a good cheer up. Happy had been pleased they'd brought his favorite flavor, a move that was Annie all the way, but she didn't mention anything as they'd divvied up the containers. She'd even insisted on grabbing extra for the flight attendants, who were just as charmed. 

Her continued kindness in spite of the evil that she faced daily, the worst that she'd faced already, surprised him. Though it shouldn't have been a surprise, neither he nor Pepper would have accepted her presence if she wasn't so inherently good. He didn't doubt there was a lot more to the story than he'd heard, that there were other probably just as bad stories back there. She had that look of someone who'd seen too much, a look he caught in Rhodey's eyes on occasion. 

He convinced her and Happy to tell him about the demon they'd taken care of the night before and they took great care to make it sound as adventurous as possible. 

"I heard my name, and there was Happy throwing me the battle axe, just in the nick of time."

"She lopped its head off like it was nothing."

"Not before you shoved that sword in its back, great move by the way."

"Happy got to slay something, seriously?" he grouched, embellishing his disappointment at being left out for their amusement, and feeling pleased with himself as it worked.

"Next time you'll just have to stick it out for the fun part," Annie grinned, as he complained once more about not being there.

 

"What are you reading?" Xander asked, sitting down next to Cordelia, who was staring at the newsprint tabloid in her hands. "I thought you hated that one."

"I do, but seriously, look at that dress," she answered, closing up the mag and showing him the cover.

There, front and center was Tony Stark, with his ever present bodyguard and driver on one side and a blond who'd held up her clutch in front of her face on the other. The headline mentioned partying in a city that wasn't terribly familiar to Xander.

"Uh, it's very black," he shrugged, not quite certain how to respond about the skin tight black leather dress.

"Apparently the temp secretary they hired is keeping him out of trouble, he only got wasted one of the two nights he was partying in Ibiza," Cordelia explained, flipping open the newsprint to show the other photos from the trip that had been caught. In each, the blond had held up papers or purse to block her face, though the magazine had included detailed information on her wardrobe. "But she always blocks her face. If I had clothes like that and was traveling like that, I certainly wouldn't cover up my face."

"Not everyone wants to be noticed, I mean, some people are purposefully hiding out there," he answered snappishly, thinking about Buffy running away. Over a month was a long time.

"Yeah, well, I highly doubt Buffy is in hiding by traveling with a billionaire," Cordelia scoffed, picking up on his tone immediately.


	13. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: My computer broke with Window's last update on Thursday, so I spent all day yesterday fixing it and most of today recuperating (read: drinking mimosas to make up for blowing a day and a half of vaca time on fixing my computer). Thankfully, all my work is being done via OneDrive so I can keep going from my office and not get in trouble, so nothing was lost, it was just the emotional drama of completely stripping my computer and starting fresh (and not going on a last minute beach trip to spend the time doing that). 
> 
> This chapter in particular, was written ages ago, but when I sent it to my editor, I hated it, and she ended up not looking at it before I completely rewrote everything. I admit, the finished product makes me a lot happier.

Returning from Ibiza had meant throwing themselves even deeper into the designs Tony had come up with to help with slaying. Conceptually, he wanted to make it safe for someone of normal strength to defend themselves against the vampires and demons of the world, and Buffy couldn't help but want to help. After her conversation with Tony, the people she'd left behind in Sunnydale weighed heavily on her mind. From the looks Tony gave her from time to time and the pile of work he'd dug up for them to tackle, she guessed he understood and was helping in the way that only he could. 

"Is the case ready?" Tony asked across the workshop/garage, from where he sat at his part of the project. 

"Almost, just smoothing out the rough spots," Buffy answered from the other end where she was working with Dum-E to reshape metal into the small curved ball shape they figured out would be good for the device. 

"You have disturbingly steady hands," Tony pointed out, handing her the tiny screws. "Can you put these together?" 

"Sure," she answered, taking his seat and pulling on a headband with the magnifying glass. 

"So this super strength thing, how'd that happen?" Tony asked, scribbling notes on one of the other plans they'd been working on. Then, giving her a narrow-eye looked, he asked pointedly, "What made you think 'I have super powers, I think I'll go fight vampires'?" 

"I'm the slayer, it's a package deal," she rolled her eyes, and thought vaguely about the possibility of a name tag reading _'I'm the Slayer, ask me how'_. 

"The Slayer," he rolled the word around, testing it out a few times, but sounded a bit incredulous the whole time. "What exactly is the Slayer?" 

"The Slayer is the one girl, given the strength and the power to fight the vampires and other forces of darkness," she recited. 

"Like a chosen one kind of thing?" he shot back immediately, and she shrugged, because she'd never felt very good about the whole destiny thing. 

"So if you're this mythical 'Slayer', why were you retiring?" Tony finally asked the question she'd been expecting all day as she leaned over the table to work on the tiny parts he'd handed her. 

"When one girl dies the next one is called," she told him carefully, not pausing in her work. "The girl after me, Kendra, was killed.”

"But that means you-" 

"I was revived," she cut him off, before handing the completed piece over. "Anything else?" 

"Yeah, got a whole pile, think you're up to it?" he grinned, not taking the question bait, there would be time for that later, more important was getting this finished and tested. 

"Let's do it," she grinned as well, as he started dragging her rolling chair over towards the drafting table to explain what she needed to be doing. 

 

Tony didn't quite let things go and had demanded a full explanation of how Slayers worked, and she'd found it was nothing short of impossible to answer all of his questions. He was still pretty convinced slayers had to be a genetic mutation and that the whole called by the death of the predecessor thing couldn’t be true. She could understand, demons could be explained as simply other intelligent species, nothing necessarily mystical, but magic, well, even she'd found that hard to believe once upon a time. 

"That'll be Rhodey," he told her on a Saturday afternoon a couple weeks after Ibiza, as a doorbell interrupted their continued work. "He's going to warn me about you." 

The grin on his face told her a lot about his thoughts on the topic, and she cracked a grin, before heading upstairs. She would have to head him off to find out just what he knew. While she'd opened up about her past and what had happened, she wasn't quite certain she was ready to give up the freedom of not being Buffy. 

"Hey, Rhodey," she greeted him, opening the door, but blocking him from walking right in. 

"Hi, _Anne_ ," there was a pointedness to the way he said her name, like he knew she was faking it. Then without pulling any punches, he glanced at the house and told her, "Good way to hide." 

"Pepper's idea, in plain sight," she answered succinctly, she wasn't going to tell him any more than necessary. 

"Pepper's idea?" he asked, lifting an eyebrow and sounding surprised. "Does she know?" 

"Depends what there is to know," she answered edgy, not about to share more than she needed to. 

"You're the slayer," he pointed out clearly. 

"Where'd you hear about that?" she wasn't ready to give ground just yet. 

"My old unit, we handled issues like yours from time to time, so they kept us updated about slayers, just in case we ever came across them. Heard one ran away a bit ago," he explained. "Two and two." 

"And what's your plan for two and two?" she asked, getting straight to the point, as she crossed her arms in front of her chest and made it clear she'd deliberately blocked his path to the door. 

"From what I heard, a Slayer went AWOL from her unit," he answered seriously, keeping steady eye contact. He was definitely military through and through, AWOL was obviously a no go for him. 

"Unit, what unit?" she snapped immediately. "Slayers are under the Watchers' Council. The Watchers' Council mostly just sits back and watch while slayers die. I already did, it's not my turn anymore." 

"You died?" he asked, catching the salient part of her mini-rant. "You're practically a kid." 

"I was called at 15, slayers are always young. Who would expect a tiny girl?" she answered, not relaxing her stance or tone in the slightest. If he was going to call the Watcher's Council about her, she was going to make him feel guilty as shit about it first. "Usually, they kidnap potentials from their families and raise them in a strict training system. They never even get to be kids, they're just always trained to be fighting machines." 

"And you?" he asked carefully, mulling over what she'd said. 

"Got lucky. They missed me. So when I was called, I still had family and friends, and when I died, I had someone who knew how to do CPR," she explained. "I'm not going back, just to put them in more danger." 

"You didn't choose to be the slayer?" he asked with disbelief written all over his face. 

"Of course not, no one chooses to be the Slayer. You're _chosen_ ," she rolled her eyes. 

"Alright," he nodded, then stepped forwards to go towards the house. 

"What are you going to do with this?" she demanded, moving just enough to show she was blocking his path. 

"Do with what? I don't know anything," he shrugged simply, before smiling, and she relaxed and nodded. "I've gotta tell Tony something though. He doesn't know the meaning of letting things go." 

"He knows about the slayer thing," she told him, and the look of surprise on his face made her laugh. 

"Hiding in plain sight," he nodded slowly, finally seeming to get it. 

"I can't wait to hear what the military's saying," she grinned, leading the way down to the workshop. 

 

"That's the stupidest thing anyone's ever told me," Tony exclaimed and Buffy gave up her attempts at keeping serious. Between Rhodey's incorrect information to Tony's constant interruptions, it wasn't like she'd had much of a chance before. "How can anyone get away with kidnapping kids that regularly?" 

Rhodey had taken the whole thing a lot easier, but at least he'd already had an intro, albeit a completely wrong backstory that totally missed all the parts where the Watchers' Council was awful and horrible and just throwing girls into the field like cannon fodder. Tony hadn't quite gotten to that part yet. it was why she'd avoided discussing the Council in their previous talks. Having to admit out loud that she was just a pawn in the whole thing wasn't something she was particularly proud of, no matter how well she liked to think she managed on the whole. 

"So this council, you called them watchers, what's the council's name?" he asked, already off thinking about something else, his brain obviously skipping to the parts he could handle at the moment, as he started typing something into JARVIS. 

"Why?" she asked, narrowing her eyes, watching him carefully. 

"Seriously?" his head snapped up quickly, catching her eyes. "You don't trust me?" 

"Oh, I trust you. I don't fully trust the Council. Especially if they're going around telling everyone we sign up by choice and that me running away is like running away from the military," she snapped, still fuming over the false details Rhodey had shared with them before she'd provided corrections. 

"The Watchers' Council," Rhodey filled in, obviously ignoring the glare she sent him. 

"Oh," was Tony's only response to Rhode's answer, ignoring her own, as he typed away on the computer. "They were part of the initial investors when my father was growing Stark Industries. Currently they're at a fifteen percent share hold. Not much, not enough to do anything, but more than any other single group or person besides me." 

"I should go then. Tell Pepper that I'm really sorry she couldn't finish her trip," she couldn't help the sigh that followed, this was too much, one more thing that made being Buffy really suck. No matter what she did, she was constantly putting friends at risk one way or another. 

"You're not going anywhere," Tony pointed at her, his tone firm. "But this does mean we should get that UV ball finished and get the other projects really started. I'm crazy enough that they'll believe I've run into things, and their involvement's been silent from the beginning." 

"You sure?" she didn't really believe him, but they had made it half the summer so far. 

"Of course," he grinned. Then, turning on his friend, his grin turned to one that clearly betrayed that he was up to something, "What's the military think about investing in more unique research and product development?" 

"I think I can find you a very good market," the other man grinned, seeming to pick up on something she wasn't getting. 

"Care to explain?" 

"Distract them, make it seem like Rhodey and I figured it out on our own, no slayer at all," he grinned, getting up from the computer and going back to the work table where he'd been carefully rigging up the UV prototype. "We've got a lot of work ahead of us if we're going to get this done tonight." 

"Tonight?" she asked surprised, the project had been going slowly, but they also hadn’t been rushing things. 

"Tonight," he nodded quickly. "It was great seeing you, Rhodey, let's not do this particular version again." 

"Sounds good, Tony," Rhodey grinned, before patting Buffy on the shoulder and leaving.


	14. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: posting this without thorough edit because it's so far behind. I took a week to rethink some stuff, and now we're heading into territory that I don't have written out because it wasn't part of the original story. Despite what I told people in comments, the Sunnydale crew has made a fight for their existence (and badassness) and they're winning.

"What are these?" Joyce asked, for the third time, incredulous as she looked at the photos in her hands. There was Buffy, dressed to the nines, a clutch held up to block her face on the opposite side. 

"A colleague at the Council received them and forwarded them to me," Giles explained once more. 

"You mentioned that," she pointed out, feeling no calmer than she had when he told her the same fact moments ago when handing the photos to her. " _Where_ were these taken? _When?_ " 

"A couple weeks ago, when I received a call saying a slayer had been sighted in Ibiza, it was Buffy, she was there. This photos were taken as she entered a party," he explained. 

Joyce focused instead on the photos in her hand, spreading them out on the coffee table, there had to be something that would help her find her daughter. She couldn't fathom how it happened, but Buffy had gotten access to money and was noticeable that she was being photographed and knew it. 

"The Council is looking for her, Joyce," Giles spoke, his voice sounding more hesitant and less solid than it had over the course of the summer. 

"Not much help they've been," she glared at him. She'd spent most of the summer trying to convince herself it wasn't his fault, but it _was_ his fault. 

"I don't think you understand me. If she doesn't return on her own, should they find her, they will not be returning her to Sunnydale," Giles continued and she felt the horror of his meaning pool in her stomach. "The colleague who sent these photos does not agree with this decision and wants to help. He's not the only one." 

"They can't do that," she finally spoke, but the words didn't come out quite as sure as she felt they should have. 

"They've been doing it for hundreds of years," Giles answered after a moment, sounding very tired, and she was reminded that he'd been traveling all over the country trying to find her missing daughter. 

"Well, then, we have to stop them," she answered immediately, that fear in her stomach turning to anger and determination. 

"That we do," he agreed, maybe sounding a little less defeated.

 

"If I'm gonna test this out, you can't be there too," Buffy shook her head, as she slid fresh stakes into the handles of the purse she was going to take. It was larger than usual, but it needed to be to hold the baseball sized device. 

"Come on, we've tested it enough times, it goes off no problem," Tony groaned, smoothing his suit jacket out once more over his rocker T.

"And the vampires? It might not take them out, you know," she reminded him. "If it doesn't, I'm already going to be scrambling to take them out." 

"I'll go with you, that way you're not distracted in case it doesn't work," Happy volunteered. She could tell he was being placating, but she'd also seen him in a fight. 

"See, there, solution," she grinned at Tony, but the look he gave them spoke volumes. 

"I need to see it in action, how else can I fix any issues?" he tried again. 

Eventually, they'd come to the solution that Happy would protect Tony, and Buffy would wear a camera, because there was no way all three of them could follow a vampire out of a club as a group without getting caught. 

 

It wasn't difficult to lure a couple of vamps out into the alley. She fought took out the first one instantly, there wasn't any way to delay long enough for the guys to get outside, but managed to keep the second engaged that he didn't even notice Happy rolling the ball into the alley. A flash went off, like an oddly colored camera, and there it was, she was covered in the dust he'd left behind. 

"Ugh, vamp dust, gross," she coughed, trying to rub it off of her face. 

"That was great!" Tony was grinning. "We'll have to test it again, of course, but it worked." 

"It's too big," Happy pointed out carefully. In the end, there hadn't been a way for her to carry it outside, carrying her purse was too awkward to make work. 

"Well, yeah, but this is just a prototype, and it worked," Tony was not going to let it get him down.

"We should celebrate," Buffy suggested, finally feeling just clean enough from the vamp dust, to stop trying to wipe it off and head back inside. 

"How about burgers at Helen's? I'm starving after all that work," Tony grinned, as they wandered back through the club. 

"Work? Excuse me, I did everything." Buffy pushed him gently with her shoulder, following as Happy parted the crowd for them all the way back to their table, where she grabbed her stuff. 

"And you're starving too, aren't you?" Tony grinned, and she rolled her eyes, of course she was hungry, slaying always made her hungry. 

"Fine, food sounds good," she shrugged, as they to the side in the entry way, just out of line of photographers. Happy left with the valet to retrieve the car, no way would he have let any random valet drive one of the cars under his charge. 

 

They found a corner at Helen's easily, making it there before the club crowd really filtered in. That Tony had been going there for years had made the odd transition from being a waitress to being his PA surprisingly easy. Mitch had merely asked for her uniform back and given her an extra slice of pie.

Tony was already scribbling out way to cut down on size, when a familiar flash caught Buffy's attention out of the corner of her eye. Blond and practically malnourished, it took her a moment to remember where she'd seen the girl before, but locked in a basement waiting to be killed by vampires did manage to make an impression.

"Can we go?" she asked quickly, interrupting Tony's never ending stream of dialogue, nudging his shoulder with her own. 

"Anne?" Happy asked, watching her carefully. 

"I'm exhausted that's all," she shrugged, as Tony finally looked up, only to give her a strange look, like he didn't believe her. "Here, I'll grab the check." 

She slid out of the booth and got their slip from the waitress, and older woman she knew from her brief time waitressing there. It was as she waited for the check to be tallied that the girl came up to her. 

"B-" 

"Anne," she corrected, cutting her off before she could say the name, before it could be put out there. 

"Anne," the blond nodded, quickly, getting it. "I changed my name too. My name's Lily now. I just, I wanted to say thank you, I didn't say thank you before." 

"Don't worry about it. Look, I've gotta go. Glad to see you're ok," she shrugged, sliding a twenty to the cashier, as Tony and Happy stood up towards the back and started over. 

"Who's this?" came Tony's voice from behind her, and she forced herself not to cringe. Worlds colliding was the last thing she needed. 

"No one," Lily answered, bending down like she was picking something up. "She dropped this." 

She held out an old ponytail holder that definitely wasn't hers. 

"Not mine," she shrugged. "Thanks though." 

"Come on, kid," Happy nodded, giving her an out from Tony making things worse. "Sounds like Tony wants to get started on the new prototype tonight." 

"Got it," she nodded and followed Happy, helping to herd Tony out the door. 

"What was that?" Tony asked immediately as they stepped outside and started walking for the lot where the wealthy club kids parked their cars in the area when not directly at one of the clubs with valet parking. 

"Nothing, just someone I saved in a past life. She wanted to say thanks and was smart enough not to blow my cover," she rolled her eyes at him. 

"Hey, I've never blown your cover," Tony retorted. "If anything, you blew your own cover. You're not very good at that, you know." 

"Yeah, yeah, I suck at being secret identity girl," she complained as Tony and Happy laughed. 

 

Joyce felt a pang of sadness watching the four teens sitting around her house, joking and talking. Buffy was supposed to be there with them. She shook herself and brought the sodas she'd been grabbing to the living room. 

"Thank you, Mrs. Summers," Willow thanked her, the rest of the teens following in a chorus as she handed them the glasses. 

She sat down and found herself struggling to find the words to explain the danger Buffy was facing. 

"What's going on, Mrs. S?" Xander asked, giving voice to the question on all of their faces. "Is there news about Buffy?" 

"She was in Ibiza, Spain a couple weeks ago," Joyce told them, knowing that they were kept up to date with any sightings that Giles was told about. 

"No!" It was Cordelia that yelled, and while she had been supportive, she had never been Buffy's biggest cheerleader. 

"One of Giles' contacts at the Council sent these," she retrieved the photos Giles had brought from the console against the wall, and Cordelia quickly snatched one up. "They've been looking for her." 

"Why does that sound more ominous than it should?" Willow asked quietly. 

"Because it is, isn't it?" Xander asked, when she didn't respond, not quite sure how to tell them. 

"Xander, we have to get something from my car," Cordelia told him, standing up, car keys in hand, and the teen followed dutifully.


	15. Chapter 14

Cordelia came rushing back into the living room waving a magazine in her hands. The cover looked like a grocery store tabloid and Joyce couldn't fathom just what was so important. The teen slammed the magazine on the coffee table beside the surveillance photos of Buffy in Ibiza. Tony Stark being in Ibiza. In the corner of the photo was a visible swath of black lace and leather, and Joyce felt her breath catch in her throat. Cordelia flipped through the pages rapidly, stopping on a full layout of Tony Stark, his driver and an unidentified temp assistant, who stood dressed in black, a clutch purse blocking her face.

"It's the same," Willow breathed.

"I don't know how she did it, but Buffy's working for Tony Stark," Cordelia pointed out.

"The Porche," Xander spoke out loud, garnering everyone's attention, but he was looking directly at Oz.

"Probably," the quiet teen agreed, nodding his head.

"There was a brand new Porche Boxster outside the Espresso Pump just after the forth," Xander explained.

The image trickled through Joyce’s mind slowly. An expensive car like that driving slowly through the neighborhood had struck her as odd, but there it was, a black sports car across the street. She'd thought it was going to park for a moment.

"It was black, wasn't it?" Joyce asked Xander, just to confirm.

"Yeah, how'd you..." he trailed off with an 'oh', as the idea clicked. "So that was probably Buffy."

 

"Miss Gallagher, there's a Lily at the front gate asking for you," the security guard on shift called up to her desk.

"Blond, underfed?" she asked, checking the day’s schedule quickly. Tony was still down in the lab for a couple more hours before lunch, she was supposed to be handling his emails and manning the phones for the morning.

"Yeah, that's her," came the response.

"Have someone escort her to reception, I'll meet her there," she answered quickly, making up her mind. This needed to be managed, and if she'd managed Tony all summer, she could manage this. She quickly dialed down to Tony's in-house lab, not sure if he'd be able to hear her over the music.

"Hello," he answered after several rings, dropping his 'h' more like a 'y', distracted, obviously.

"I need to step away for a moment. I'll be right back," she told him, and when she didn't get a response continued, "Want me to bring you coffee when I finish?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, sure," he agreed, obviously not paying attention.

 

"Miss Gallagher," the security guard in his suit in the lobby greeted as she exited the elevator. He nodded in the direction of sofas near reception, where Lily was hovering. "Your guest."

"Thank you, Steve," she nodded, allowing him to see how not happy she was about the situation. He was one of the security guards present every day, it hadn't taken long to learn his name or that he kept Happy in the loop for what was going on around the office with Tony and Pepper, and her in Pepper's stead.

"Anne!" Lily exclaimed in her breathy voice seeming to jump in her own skin when Buffy joined her.

"Come on, let's take a walk," she nodded her head towards the door, leading the girl out of the building. 

"Wow, this place is amazing, it's like a whole other world," Lily breathed as they walked out into the park portion of the Stark Industries compound. 

While right on the edge, accessible via the bus system, Stark Industries really did create a whole other world in the city, Howard Stark's visible touch on everything.

"Yeah," Buffy shrugged, not really wanting to waste her day conversing with the obviously lost girl. She knew what it felt like to feel that lost, but she'd never been as helpless as the taller blond always made herself out to be, not even before she'd been called as the slayer.

"Rickie, the guy I was with the other day, he's missing," she explained carefully. "I was hoping you could help me find him."

"Have you contacted the police?" Buffy suggested carefully.

"I can't, he kind of skipped out on a warrant," Lily told her hesitatingly.

"Are you sure he won't come back soon?" she tried again.

"He's never been gone this long, something's wrong," Lily pressed. "Please you've got to help me, that's what you do, isn't it?"

"Look, I don't really..." she stopped, realizing Lily knew enough to make things more difficult than they needed to be. Helping find a lost teen couldn't be that hard. "Alright, tell me everything, identifying details, places you guys go."

"He might be at the blood bank," Lily suggested, after telling Buffy about the matching tattoos.

"Alright, we'll start there," Buffy nodded, heading back inside. Once inside she walked straight up to the receptionist, "Stacy, can you call Happy and ask him to bring the car around?"

"Of course, Miss Gallagher," the brunette nodded easily.

"Lily, just wait here a moment, I have to take care of something before I go," Buffy offered, directing the taller girl back to the sofas. She deal with Tony if she was really going to do this.

 

"You're going where?" Tony asked, giving her a raised eyebrow. 

"I'm gonna check it out. I'll take Happy with me," she told him again, rolling her eyes.

"I'm coming." He tugged off the gloves he'd been wearing, and started to stand up.

"No, you're too noticeable. It's too obvious," she shook her head. "Happy and I will be back in a couple hours, we'll bring back lunch from that Thai place."

"You guys leave me out of all the fun," he grouched.

"Yeah, well, famous dude," she laughed, gesturing in his direction, "kind of makes it hard to do undercover anything."

"You're terrible at undercover," he pointed out.

"A girl can dream," she tossed her hair and laughed. "Hey, maybe you can get Mitch at Helen's to send over a copy of the security tape from when we were there. He was there with her, hopefully we can get a shot of Rickie's face."

"Lame, that's easy. We can call security and have them handle it," he rolled his eyes.

"You really want to pull Obie in on a non-Stark Industries project?" she asked pointedly, and he sighed dramatically, but obviously got the point.

"Ai-ai Captain," he fake saluted, before she turned and left.

 

"Can I help you?" a nurse at the blood bank asked, as she walked in, flanked by Happy and Lily.

"Yeah, we're looking for a friend, Rickie. He comes in with Lily sometimes," she answered motioning towards the taller blond beside her.

“Rickie T,” Lily spoke up helpfully.

"Oh yeah, I remember him, nice kid, is he in trouble?" she asked, eying Buffy and Happy's well-tailored suits.

"No, we're just trying to help him out. Any chance he's come in recently?" she tried.

"I can check the log books and see," was the response she was offered.

Happy shook his head, but continued to guide them out when the response was a negative.

"She's not telling us everything," he answered simply, once they were out of the office.

"We should split up, cover more ground. Happy and I can check around this evening, see if we find him, can you give us a list of places he goes?"

"Of course," Lily nodded once they were outside, then paused. "Can I come with you guys?"

"Yeah, I'm not sure where I lost you on this split up thing," Buffy rolled her eyes after a moment, before listening as Lily told her the places she and Rickie had been crashing around the neighborhood, places Buffy had crashed in those first couple days before getting the job and the apartment, before meeting Tony.

 

"There's a Mrs. Summers calling for Miss Gallagher," the company's phone operator told Tony, pulling him away from where he'd been looking through Helen's security tapes.

"Miss Gallagher is running an errand, take a message, the lab is do not disturb," he rattled off, annoyed that they passed the call on to him.

"I know Miss Gallagher is out, but the woman swears it's an emergency. She sounds really upset," she explained. "She called on the private line, I don't know how she got it, but..."

"Yeah, yeah, connect it," maybe Pepper's suggestion had finally gotten through and Anne had left a number for her mom to call, he certainly didn't want to get in the way of a family reconnect.

"This is Tony," he answered once the call connected.

"Hello, I'm Joyce Summers," the voice sounded uncertain, and he wished this had just come in when Annie was around, she was the one that needed to be on the call. "Your secretary, Anne Gallagher, is my daughter. She ran away this summer. I’ve been looking for her."

“From what I’ve heard, it sounds more like she was kicked out,” his tone was probably colder than it should’ve been, and he was probably meaner than was warranted, but as strong as Annie was physically, she still needed people to stand up for her. He was more than happy to pick up that particular gauntlet.

“I deserve that,” she sighed, and he could hear earnestness in her voice as she explained, “I spoke out of anger. I was worried about her, she’s my baby girl. I don’t know what she’s told you, Mr. Stark, but what she does, it can be very dangerous. No parent would ever want that for their child. I need to speak with her, she needs to come home. It’s very important.”

"I'm not sure how I can help, if you call back in a couple hours, she'll be here," he explained, feeling a twinge of sympathy, and the instant need to run very for he hills, as he continued watching the security footage. He soon saw the blond from a couple days before appeared beside Annie at the register. “She’s safe here, if it’s any consolation.”

"My daughter is in danger Mr. Stark," she spoke firmly, and he wondered vaguely, despite her words only moments before, if she still thought Anne was crazy. "There's an organization, it's very old and powerful and they've been taking young women from their families for years. They're after her, and if they get her, I'll never see her again. The only way they won’t take her is if she comes back on her own."

"The Watcher's Council," he filled immediately, splitting his attention with the screens as he switched to looking at the tape covering the direction the blond had come from. Short term and long term issues warring in his mind.

"Yes, she's told you -"

"Yes," he interrupted, secure line or not, that was not a phone conversation.

"I don't know how to help her," came the almost sobbed response.

"Annie's not alone here," he told her, hoping it sounded comforting.

"Buffy, her name is Buffy," her mother told him. 

“ _Buffy_ isn’t alone here,” he corrected himself, filing her real name away carefully, _Buffy Summers_. “If anything, she’s doing very well, considering how she was when we met her.”

“How she was?” the concern filled her words and he couldn’t help but feel bad.

“She…” he trailed off, not quite sure how to put the truth to words in a nice way. “What happened, it really messed with her. Pepper suggested PTSD.”

He heard the sharp intake of breath.

“She’s doing better now, than she was, but she can’t go back,” he told her, not unkindly, but if he had his say, she’d never go back to whatever town it was she came from. Everything she’d told him about it spoke volumes as to how strong a person she was inside and out.

“I don’t know how to protect her,” Joyce echoed her earlier words, sounding as defeated as Annie – _Buffy_ , he mentally corrected – had when she’d suggested leaving to keep from causing trouble for him with the Council.

“We’re doing what we can,” he told her honestly.

"Please keep her safe."

 

"Excuse me," Happy said, reaching out to keep an elderly woman from falling, she'd blindly walked into his side. He and Buffy watched carefully as she pulled away, flinching.

"I'm no one, I'm no one," she repeated, and continue walking away quickly.

"Weird," Buffy shook her head. "We can do a basic patrol and check around the places Lily thinks he might be tonight. Any chance we can leave Tony at home?"

"We'll have to, he's too noticeable," Happy slouched, as they reached the car, not looking forward to having to be part of that united front.

 

"Tony," Pepper's voice came distorted over the sat phone he'd sent her traveling with, despite that, she did not sound happy to hear from him.

"You need to catch the next flight back," he told her.

"Tony!" she snapped in response.

"Emergency only, I swear. It's Annie, people are after her, we need your organizational genius," he explained quickly.

"The Council?"

"Exactly."

"I'll be on the next flight, but I'm expensing it to you," she agreed.

"Expense the whole thing," he grinned, he'd have a lot to tell Happy and Annie, no _Buffy_ when he saw them.


	16. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you may have noticed, I added a number to the total chapter number finally. I'm feeling really sad doing that, but then, this is why this is a series and not a single part. There's just too many adventures to solve in one single story. :-)
> 
> So, we're coming to an end on this one shortly, then I'll need some time to work on the next part...I had to put that aside when I started rewriting this one.
> 
> Thank you so much for the love. I've been feeling it. <3

He'd found it annoying when Happy called to tell him that plans had changed, but he'd rebounded quickly. He raced home, hoping to beat them before they left again. When he arrived, they were sliding stakes and other concealable weapons into their beat up looking outfits and he decided he could keep his mouth shut about the call with Joyce Summers till this was finished. The twinge of concern in the corner of Buffy's eyes, told him enough that he knew better than to add a distraction to their task.

"Come on, this is the second time today I'm getting left out. I'm not ok with that," he argued as they started telling him their plans for coming back and meeting up.

"Look, it's just some lost kid. Nothing major, we'll be back in no time," Buffy reassured him, trying to convince him that they weren't up to anything cool, which he didn't quite believe. Slayer stuff was always kind of cool.

"Maybe you could look into the police reports around the neighborhood, anything in the local papers," Happy suggested, glancing at Buffy. "Remember that old woman today that was pretty strange."

"What old woman?" he asked, narrowing his eyes, Happy's distraction attempt feeling pretty obvious.

"This old woman bumped into me, repeating 'I'm no one' over and over," Happy answered.

"It didn't seem like anything at the time, and I wasn't going to say anything, but I saw another guy the night we first ran into Lily. He was across the street from Helen's and he was saying the same thing," she added thoughtfully.

"Ok, that is definitely weird," Tony agreed, this sounded like a bit more than they'd originally thought and, from some of Buffy's slayer stories, usually it was the kind of thing the general population wouldn't notice right away. "I'll see what I can find. Thankfully, the LA police department loved our gift of a computer system and they've been good about using it. There might something there."

 

"Happy, over here," Buffy called out from one side of the abandoned building that was being used as a squatting place. When she'd been there after first arriving in LA, it had been full of teenagers, but now there were a handful of elderly people, both men and women, wandering around, all repeating 'I'm no one.'

She hadn't checked the body because she'd thought it was Rickie. She'd checked because of the empty bottle of drain cleaner. There wasn’t a pulse and his skin felt cool to the touch, and as she’d stood up, something caught her eye. There on his arm had been the matching tattoo to Lily's.

"I thought we were looking for a young guy," Happy answered, holding out the photo Tony had printed off for them earlier from the diner's security feed.

"Look at the tattoo," she answered, holding up the dead man's arm.

"She told you he picked her name, any chance this could be a set up?" he asked, still not quite used to jumping to the insane explanation for things yet. 

"Doubt it, but maybe we can confirm it somehow?" she suggested.

"Here, pull some hairs, if we get some DNA, the blood bank should have a sample," he offered, holding out one of his fabric handkerchiefs. 

She silently tugged out a few hairs, roots attached and dropped them on the cloth, and then took a moment to look around. There weren't any personal affects or identifying marks besides the tattoo. He'd been stripped of personality during whatever happened.

"We should call Tony, see what he's found. It looks like having him look up lost old people was a good idea now," she shrugged, getting to her feet and starting immediately towards the exit. No reason to stay any longer than necessary, the search for Rickie was done.

They were back out on the street walking towards the diner when Anne's phone rang.

"Hello?" she greeted, after pulling it out of the backpack she'd carried. Cellphones were definitely bulky, but they'd proved useful a couple times now.

"You were right about the old people," Tony answered immediately. "There's been a steady increase the last few months of elderly people appearing, all of them claiming to be 'no one'. Also, there was a police officer in the neighborhood claiming that a number of the squatters have been vanishing, I called him up, and he said they were all young and healthy."

"Rickie's dead," she told him, her words uncertain as she processed through the information he'd found. "He looked like he was eighty, but we’re pretty sure it was him, same tattoo. We grabbed a hair sample, maybe we can get ahold of a blood sample from the blood bank and test it."

"So something's making people old," Tony stated, jumping immediately to the same answer she'd concluded. She couldn't help but glance at Happy with a small smirk tugging at her lips. Tony had taken way too easily to all the weird stuff.

"Exactly," she agreed. "Happy's gonna come get you. I'm going to check things out, see if I notice anything different. We're supposed to meet Lily at the diner in an hour."

"You should come with Happy, we can figure things out in the car," Tony argued, and she understood his tone, his usual ‘not on your own’ tone, but some things were easier to see and do as a lone young person.

"I need to check this out, there's got to be something going on. You said it was all young people missing. Maybe if I'm on my own, I can find something I wouldn't be able to with you guys," she answered, knowing he wasn't going to agree to it, but he wasn't there to stop it.

"Be careful," he answered after a moment of silence, obviously getting that she wasn't going to listen, before hanging up.

"Happy, Tony's got some useful info. Can you go get him? We'll meet at the diner as planned," she explained, turning back to the other man. Happy looked like he was about to argue as well, so she gave the ultimate guilt line, "There's no one else that can do this, Happy. We're the only ones that get what's going on."

"Alright, but you stay safe, ok?" he gave her a pointed look.

"Will do, reconnaissance only," she mock saluted, before they parted ways.

 

It really was reconnaissance only, it seemed, as she wandered around. She'd run into a number of other lost and confused, but they all seemed incapable of answering with anything other than 'I'm no one.' She took note of where she saw them and figured maybe they could pull out a map from the car or something and mark off all the areas. Figuring out the epicenter could be useful.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she reacted immediately, after bumping into someone coming around the corner.

"No, please don't worry about it," he shook his head, good naturedly, as he bent down to pick up the flyers he'd dropped from where they'd spread all over the sidewalk, she immediately crouched down and started helping him. Once they were gathered, he held one back out, as they stood up, "You should keep one."

"I'm sorry?" she asked, confused, seeing that it was a flyer for a shelter.

"We feed more than just the body, we also offer food for the soul," he nodded with a smile, and something about it made her feel off. He held out his hand, "I'm Ken."

"I'm good, thanks," she shook off the weird feeling, and ignored the offered handshake.

"Look, I know your type. I've seen plenty around here. You're running away from something, proving a point. There's always a place for you, you don't have to be on your own," he offered, losing the smile, sounding a little more forceful than she appreciated.

"Thanks, but no thanks. I'm not alone," she glared before taking off, this was just too uncomfortable. Yeah, sure she'd run away, but she'd landed on her feet. She'd found a place where she wasn't on her own in a way she hadn't even had in Sunnydale with Willow and Xander, who got it, but not really.

 

"What's wrong?" Tony asked, the moment she joined them, lifting his ever present sunglasses to give her a look over.

"Nothing, it's just nothing," she shrugged, sliding in beside him at the booth, and sipping the coffee Happy slid in front of her.

They both looked like they didn't believe her, but didn't continue asking as Lily rushed over and sat down beside Happy, looking just as upset as earlier.

"I couldn't find him, did you have any luck?" she asked, concerned.

"Lily, I'm sorry. We found Rickie. He's dead," Buffy explained carefully, feeling more and more certain as she processed through the events of the day.

"No, that's not possible," Lily exclaimed, the tears quickly forming. "You didn't meet him, maybe it wasn't him."

"It was his tattoo, but he looked like he was eighty. We're going to check things out to be sure," Happy filled in gently, desperate looks on both Buffy and Tony's faces at how to deal with the crying girl.

"It's not him, he's not eighty," Lily snapped.

"This has been happening a lot, kid. Young people disappear, old people appear," Tony answered, only to earn glares from everyone at the table.

"Look, something is sucking the age out of people, we're going to figure it out, but Rickie's gone," Buffy picked up, realizing they needed to get back out there.

"Like a vampire?" Lily asked, hiccupping a little.

"That's not how vampires work, it's more like it aged him. Maybe something in the blood," Buffy worked through, and both Happy and Tony's heads snapped up sharply, obviously thinking what she was suddenly thinking. The blood bank was definitely on the list of places to stop that night.

"No, weird things always happen when you're around, you brought it with you," Lily snapped, jumping to her feet and rushing away.

Tony, quick as could be, was jumping out of his corner of the booth, around through one of the empty ones, and was in front of her before she could leave.

"Kid, you're the one that asked for help. If you didn't want it, if you don't want to know, don't ask. Don't blame her for your problems," he yelled, gearing up for more, but stopping as Buffy put her arm on his.

"Tony, stop, it's ok." She tightened her grip enough that he felt it, but not enough to really hurt him, and his attention was hers as Lily stormed past them and out onto the streets.

"We still have to figure this out," Happy shrugged, joining them.

"First let’s check out the blood bank," Buffy nodded, knowing her voice was a command, but they were ready to help, ready to follow, and she could definitely use it.


	17. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I wasn't a fan of this chapter when I first started it, and to be honest, left most of it till the last minute to write, but now that it's done, I'm actually super into it. (It's ok if you're not, I accept, my skill is not in the action scenes.)
> 
> Thanks for all the love. Much appreciated! xoxo

"Don't touch that," Tony instructed, his tone firm, as she was reaching for the door handle of the blood bank. When she gave him a look that conveyed her thoughts clearly, he explained with a roll of his eyes, "Fingerprints."

"Good point," instead of reaching out again, she stepped back and kicked the door in, breaking the lock right out of the wall.

"Ok, that works," he nodded, before following her in, Happy right behind them.

"Earlier, the nurse said he was in the logbook, we can get the last name he's using from that," Happy suggested, picking up the logbook and flipping back through the pages.

 

"It's over here on the desk," she called out, as Tony and Happy rummaged through other parts of the office looking for the file. 

"What's that?" Tony asked, pointing to a note on the form that read 'CANDIDATE'. "That doesn't look normal."

"It's on this one too," Happy noticed, pointing to a file that had been underneath.

All of the files in the stack had the same notation.

"What are you doing here?" the nurse from earlier asked loudly, coming out of the darker part of the office.

"Going through your files," Buffy replied almost cheerfully, before opening another and seeing the same notation, which she showed Happy and Tony.

"What does 'candidate' mean?" Tony asked, not looking up either, Happy was watching and Buffy wasn't worried.

"Those are confidential," she replied, looking angry as Buffy looked up.

"Someone's dead, and it looks like you have something to do with it. I think it would be a good idea for you to answer the question," she snapped, maneuvering in front of the woman and giving one of her best glares.

"I wasn't hurting them, I was trying to help," the woman exclaimed, looking alarmed to hear that they were dead.

"Please explain," Tony ordered, his own tone hard.

"The healthy ones, I gave their names to them, the shelter," she told them.

"Them who?" Tony was quick to ask, as she hesitated again.

"The shelter, Family Home," she answered quickly.

"What's the address?" Buffy asked quickly, remembering the nagging feeling from earlier in the evening. 

 

"I need to go in on my own," she told them, as they reached the street again.

"That's stupid," Tony snapped.

"It's a teen shelter, how do you see yourself going in there?" she snapped, stopping and turning to face him head on.

"We could say we're interested in making a large scale donation," he suggested with Happy agreeing immediately.

"At this time of night? Also, you have people for that, even Pepper doesn't talk personally with potential charities until they've been contacted by someone else," she rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, but -" he started to argue.

"I ran into him earlier, he invited me to come to the shelter. I can say I'm taking him up on his offer," she explained carefully.

"But-" Tony started again.

"No, I'm gonna go in and find out what's going on. You guys need to be outside, there might be people who need help getting out," she told them. "It's a group. I can't risk being distracted, if something happen to you guys..."

She trailed off. She couldn't tell them that all she saw was Kendra dead and the rest of her friends injured. She couldn't say out loud that she was afraid she couldn't protect them.

"Alright," Happy agreed with a small nod, obviously he got it.

They walked back to the car in silence. Even Tony, despite the petulant look on his face, managed not to keep pushing. 

"Hold on," Tony ordered, holding up his hand, blocking her from the trunk, as they approached. When Happy popped the lid, he reached in and pulled out something that looked like something with seatbelts attached to it. "It's just something I've been working on."

She took it and carefully examined it, finding that it was a back holster for a short sword.

"This is awesome," she grinning, pulling him in for a big hug, before turning back to the trunk of weapons he and Happy had grabbed from the house. Pulling out an almost gun like device, she asked, "What's this?"

"Uh, handheld laser cutter. You said it would be good for military capabilities, so I had the R&D guys pull it together. It cuts through metal, figured it could be useful," he shrugged, being far more modest than she was used to, then again, this was probably the first time they'd gone into a fight that summer not certain they would win.

"It's awesome, you should take it," she nodded, shrugging off her hoodie and pulling on the holster he'd constructed. Ultimately, it hid perfectly once Happy refolded the hood to cover the handle for her. "I'll need you guys to make sure there's a clear back exit, sometimes the front door isn't quite so easy, and this neighborhood, there's bound to be bars blocking doors and windows."

"We can handle that," Happy agreed, putting the laser device into a backpack.

 

What she didn't tell them, as they'd scoped out alternative exits that would need to be cleared, was that she was kind of afraid. Not just kind of, she was incredibly afraid, afraid that she wouldn't be good enough. This was an unknown force of more than one, she hadn't had to face an unknown like this in what felt like years. Certainly not years, only a couple of months since she fought Angel, but the fear was still there. Tony had called her out on the near panic attack in the alley back in June, but there it was, twinging at the back of her mind. She had to save the day against something huge, and maybe, just maybe, she still wasn't quite sure if she could do it, for all the bravado she showed Tony and Happy. 

As she knocked on the door and waited, she convinced herself it wasn't huge, just huge-ish. The two normal looking guys helped her push that into place as she thought about just how to handle the situation.

"Hi, I met Ken earlier, we talked, and I think he's right, I need my soul saved," she started, but as the faces maintained impassive expressions, she switched into rambling. "You know, I'm just so full of sin, with the drugs and the sex and the rock and roll."

She could hear Tony laughing at her in the back of her mind, and she was extra glad she'd managed to convince them that they couldn't be anywhere near the front while she talked her way in. Given that these guys weren't falling for her act, and were actively closing the door in her face, it was time to switch to her backup plan.

"Excuse me, that's rude, I know I suck at undercover, but seriously, door in the face," she snapped, slamming her foot into the door, the door then slamming into the first one's face, he slammed back into the one behind him, and she was in, closing the door behind her, because, well, an open door asked for trouble and she had enough.

The fight they put up was pretty pathetic and she couldn't help but wonder just what kind of lame operation they'd stumbled on, when she heard Ken's voice from one of the other rooms. There was Lily being pulled into some sort of black goop, and she felt Ken pushing her. Grabbing out blindly, she managed to grasp his arm and drag him with her. 

She couldn't help but feel grateful for the work she'd been doing with Tony over the summer, especially falling lessons. It was in her head, the same words she'd told him about taking a fall, as she remembered to tuck and curl at the last moment, narrowly missing a hard hit to the head.

Ken growled as he regained his footing, and she watched him regain his feet.

"My face," he yelled, turning to her, and she watched as the human skin fell away into his hands. "Do you have any idea how difficult it is to glue that thing on?"

"It obviously wasn't enough," she snapped back, regaining her own feet as several more of the demons walked in.

She let herself be pulled along as they grabbed her and Lily, taking them to an odd room filled with piles of grey fabric.

"Put this on," one of the demons growled, handing them the rags.

Lily hastened to listen, terrified out of her mind. Buffy couldn't risk giving up her weapons though. If she could keep her clothes, Tony's harness could keep them hidden under her hoodie.

"Yeah, that's not happening," she snapped, holding the ugly grey material out in front of her.

"You're going to put that on or-" she cut the demon off as he was grabbing her harm.

"Or what, you'll make me," she rolled her eyes, grabbing his wrist and twisting it till she heard a satisfying snap. "Touch me again and I'll break something else."

The demons growled and pointed weapons at her, but rather than forcing her to change, they guided her and Lily to a holding cell where there was a small crowd of other teens. If she was going to find out what was going on and put a stop to it, she'd have to play along for a bit, so she allowed herself to be closed in. With them were five other teens, all were dressed in the same grey rags as Lily. She began pacing the cell, keeping close along the bars so that she could take note of any weaknesses in the bars. For a moment, she wished she'd found a way to hide the mini-torch, but then her work with Tony kicked in and she saw a way to pry the hinges on the cell door and open it up if needed.

Eventually, this proved unnecessary, as the demons reappeared, weapons aimed, directing the teens forwards to another space, eventually bringing them to a stop at the entrance to some sort of factory floor. It was archaic looking machinery, but the hardest part suddenly was the sheer number of people working the machinery, once again, grey rags triumphed as the uniform. The phrase 'I'm no one' echoed around her.

"Who are you?" the demon growled at her, holding a crudely forged weapon at her chest.

"I'm Buffy, who are you?" she asked brightly, giving her most chipper attitude.

"You are no one," he growled, swinging out at her, but she caught the wood of the handle in her hands.

"No, I'm Buffy," she corrected him, spinning the weapon around and swiping at him, feeling the blade slice through his armor. As she pulled back to take another swing, she yelled out, "Lilly, you guys need to start getting everyone unchained and out of here."

The fight started hard and fast at that moment. Whenever she grabbed a spare weapon, she got it to Lily and the other new kids. They were all fresh enough to stand up for the ones that had been beaten down. The beaten down manner of those that had been enslaved for any amount of time was almost impossible. They weren't even chained, they were so used to following instructions. As she fought her way through, though, she managed to inspire the more newly arrived.

The real turning moment, though, was when Lily pushed Ken off the much higher balcony. That action alone spurned even the most brow beaten of enslaved humans into action. Suddenly they were all overthrowing their demon overlords, and they were grabbing the upper hand. 

"Get them out of here," she yelled at Lily, watching as Ken regained his footing. 

 

"I thought you said you weren't alone," Ken growled, holding her up by her throat. 

The fight had gone on longer than she usually let one happen, but she'd been watching the other humans escape and had drawn things out as long as possible. More time meant more saved, she rationalized. There it was though, he'd managed to trip her up, and caught her up by her throat.

That old terror, Angelus standing over her with the sword to her chest resurfaced and she felt the panic attack build up. As her chest started rapidly compressing, she forced herself to focus on the twinge of anger in the back of her mind.

"Why does everyone keep asking me that question?" she snapped back, finally reaching to pull her sword off her back, thrusting it into his gut.

He dropped her, and she rolled back to her feet quickly.

"I'm not alone, and the one time I was, I still had myself," she yelled, before swinging the sword at his neck, deftly removing his head.

She looked around and saw that Lily had managed to clear everyone out while she'd been fighting, the other demons obviously made themselves scarce quite a bit before. She sheathed her sword and grabbed a couple of the forged weapons they'd left behind, remembering the high walls where she'd fallen to through the pool. The way out would be a bit tricky, but climbing had never really been a problem for her since becoming the slayer.

 

It barely felt like minutes had passed before they started to hear sounds from the house. They'd managed to cut off the bars protecting the front and back doors, but were also prepared for the wrong people to start running out. Happy watched the crowd begin to trickle out of the house, glad that most of them were dressed like Rickie had been. He signaled to Tony that things were ok and they got to work helping the group of incredibly varied ages get out of the house as quickly as possible. The crowd was full of confused people, all of whom kept saying they were no one, not one of them looking familiar to either of them.

It was almost ten minutes when Happy caught sight of Lily running out, panting heavily.

"Where is she?" Tony asked, as she joined them, his tone hard and anxious.

"She was right behind me," Lily answered softly, but his attention left her as Buffy stepped through the doorway, dirtied and bloodied, but still standing upright.

She made her way through the disoriented crowd quickly, weaving around them with ease. He watched as Tony dragged her into a hug immediately, and squeezed his own way around to them. He dragged her into a hung the moment his employer released her and felt better, feeling her petite frame. 

Tony had told him, on their way to meet her at the diner, about her mother calling. He'd felt a small bit of fear welling up in his chest with those words. Having listened when she'd told stories of where she came from, the constant fighting, he couldn't imagine allowing her to return to that life once more. Whether or not her mother agreed, there was a much greater obstacle to protecting her in the form of the Watcher's Council. Here, now, post battle, he knew there was no way he could send her back and was secure in the knowledge that both Tony and Pepper agreed.


	18. Chapter 17/Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just want to send a thank you for all the love. The next part will come out after a hiatus (during which time I will be writing it, sketches need to be turned into actual chapters).

It was a Friday, and he should have been awake already according to the bedside clock. Buffy hadn't woken him up. The silence of the space seemed to crawl up the back of his neck. It wasn't like he'd really been sleeping anyways, still feeling a bit jittery after the night before, and there was a day to be had. He knew there had to be at least one meeting he wasn't allowed to miss. Getting up, he saw that his outfit for the day was already hanging off the entrance to the large closet, and the creeping feeling turned to a genuine twinge that something was wrong. He grabbed his t-shirt from the night before off the floor and headed down the hall.

The door to her set of rooms was wide open, so he kept walking. He immediately noticed that the pig that lived on her bed was gone, and the small stuffed duck wasn't sitting on the window sill anymore, which led to a more in-depth search. The clothing they'd bought her was still in the wardrobe, but the personal affects she'd arrived with were gone, including the few weapons she still kept in her room and her favorite stake, the one with a name.

With very little doubt in the capabilities of his computer, he rushed through the halls, down to the lab, hoping the computer could track her down. Unfortunately the rest of the world wasn't as automated or computerized as he would like, but there had to be something.

It was the sight of her standing in the middle of the room with her duffel bag at her feet that slowed him down.

"You're still here," the words felt lame as he spoke them, but they were all that came.

"Yeah, I was going to..." she shrugged, gesturing at the computer controls for JARVIS and he got it, she was going to clear herself out of the system, but she wasn't standing anywhere near the computer.

"You still going to?" he asked, feeling that old familiar defensiveness building up in his chest.

"I haven't been telling you the truth," she told him after a moment of silence, looking more vulnerable than he'd ever seen her.

"You're not a super powered demon hunter?" he asked, attempting to lighten the moment, neither of them were doing that great.

"No, I was faking it," she smiled a little, allowing the joke.

"Good to know," he nodded, grinned, attempted to feel better about it, but there she was two seconds from leaving without a word, and he felt his facade fall. At least she didn't know about her mother's call the day before. "You left your stuff."

"Not really mine," she shrugged.

"Of course it is," he shook his head. "It's not like it'll fit any of us. You're too short, and, you know, a girl."

"I-" she started, but he interrupted her, not really sure he wanted to hear any more excuses about material goods when she was still standing there with her duffel bag.

"So what'd you lie about?" he asked.

"My name's not Anne," she told him, looking uncertain, lost. "I'm just a runaway."

_She's got a good head on her shoulders, but she's a bit lost._

Pepper's parting words floated through his head. 

"Obviously, but you told Pepper," he said, knowing he sounded accusing, but honestly, all this time and she could've told him. 

"What happened, yeah, but I've told most of it to you too, you know," she reminded him, and maybe he guessed she had, when he put together all the bits and pieces she'd mentioned over the last few months. He'd been listening, and it was all a hell of a story. Literally, he thought, remembering that she'd been in a hell dimension only the night before.

"True, but you could've told us your mom was looking for you," he pointed out, 

"She- what?" the words came out garbled, but the surprise was clear. "Why would she be looking for me?"

" _Buffy_ ," he dragged her name out in the best possible imitation of a teenager ever. He was terrible with people and even he could figure out why her mom would be looking for her. There was no doubt that anyone who had met the blond would come to care about her just as easily as he and his own team had. "Of course she'd be looking for you."

"I have to go home," she answered finally.

"Is that where you were going?" he asked finally, seeing clearly that she was getting ready to bolt.

"Home, I shouldn't have left in the first place, but I didn't know how..." he watched her shoulders sag. 

"So you were just going to leave?" he pressed, not giving her any flex, anywhere to hide what they both knew he'd walked in on.

"I just..." she trailed off without answering.

"Have you learned nothing this summer?" he snapped, because this was just as stupid as the fights they'd had about her going against vampires on her own. Her leaving without saying anything, well, that was just completely ridiculous.

"I can't run away from things, I have to go back and fight, it's my destiny," she snapped back, and there was something so annoying about how righteous she sounded.

"So you do that by running away _again_ ," and that seemed to pop that bubble.

"Yeah, that sounds pretty stupid," she answered, finally getting his point. 

"You're mom called yesterday, she's worried about you. Apparently the Council is looking for you, and not in a nice helpful way."

"Just another reason why I have to leave," she gestured, picking her bag up once more.

"Just stop, this is too early and I haven't had coffee yet," he interrupted her again, realizing he just wasn't quite ready for a great big emotional conversation in his workshop in his boxers and day old t-shirt _and_ without coffee in his system. "Come on, take the bag back upstairs, we'll have coffee. We can be adults about this, and you _know_ I hate being an adult."

He listened to the sound of her following him quietly behind him. It was one of the rare occasions that she didn't walk with her customary silence.

It wasn't till he'd dressed and gone back downstairs to find her setting coffee mugs on the kitchen island that he finally relaxed and accepted that she wasn't going to take off without saying anything. She slid a mug of his favorite coffee, prepped just the way he liked it, into his hands, as he sat down on one of the stools, just as she did every morning, and for a moment, he pretended that nothing was going to change.

"When did you call Pepper?" she asked, sliding his cup of coffee down the kitchen island.

"Yesterday, she'll be here soon," he answered.

"Happy's picking her up at the airport now," she grinned, before opening the notebook she kept track of things in, and he let himself fully relax in the familiarity of the moment. "I got your schedule figured out, nothing too important today, so we can either head in, or take today off as a brainstorming day."

"Brainstorming, obviously."


End file.
